National Assembly for Wales

Good afternoon and welcome to this Plenary meeting. The first item on the agenda is questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language, and the first question is from Heledd Fychan.

Llywydd, I meet regularly with all Cabinet colleagues individually and collectively during the draft budget-setting process. I attended the finance sub-group with the Cabinet Secretary on 22 October, to hear from local authorities directly on their pressures and priorities. And I met again with council leaders and chief officers on Monday.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. It's good to know that you do meet so regularly, and, clearly, I'm sure that local authority leaders will have emphasised to you the fact that they are hugely concerned about their ability to provide social care services specifically because of the financial challenges that they face. In my region, and specifically in Rhondda Cynon Taf, the council is consulting on the closure of two care homes in order to make savings at the moment: Cae Glas and Ferndale House. This is despite the fact that there are residents in beds in local hospitals who are ready to be released but are awaiting a place in a care home, sometimes for weeks.

How, then, are you working with the relevant Cabinet Secretaries to ensure that no hasty decisions are made, such as the closure of care homes, until the funding picture is clearer for next year? And isn't it important, in terms of the funding position of the health service, that these homes remain open so that we're not putting more pressure on other budgets?

Well, Llywydd, I thank Heledd Fychan for that supplementary question. You are right—local council leaders tell me every time I meet them about the pressures they're facing in the area of social care, but across their responsibilities as well. 

Of course, the relationship between local authorities and health boards is a very important one and we know that there are people in hospitals now who are well enough to return home or to receive care outside of a hospital setting. I'm not sure if it's true to say that it's just an issue of funding when local councils are moving to close some residential homes. As I understand it, in RCT, there are empty beds now within their care homes. So, on the one hand, funding is important and that's what I do discuss with them, but also the demand for services for people in the community is changing and that's what local authorities are facing as well.

I thank my colleague for raising this important issue. Cabinet Secretary, all the talk has been about more money for the NHS in order to tackle waiting times. In fact, the main reason Wales is getting so much extra funding is due to the money that the UK Government is spending to tackle NHS waiting times in England. However, pumping billions extra into health is not the answer to tackling waiting times. We need to direct spending into social care, and that means directing funds to local authorities. Cabinet Secretary, how will the Welsh Government ensure that social care is properly funded in order to eliminate delayed transfers of care, which you mentioned earlier?

Well, Llywydd, of course, I agree with the Member that investment in social care is part of a solution to the pressures that the system in the round experiences. From the point of view of the individual, it really doesn't matter whether the money is being spent in the health service or in social care, provided that they get the service that is the one that they themselves need.

I think there is a wider point, though, than the one that Altaf Hussein has made this afternoon, which is that, historically, in all public services, we focus on supply—we supply more services, we create more of this, we provide more of that—whereas, in fact, we need to look at demand in services as well. Why do people present themselves for care in the NHS, particularly when the conditions that they present with are conditions avoidable if different choices are made and different sources of help are available to people earlier in the progression of the difficulty that eventually means you need a secondary care service? So, it's rebalancing the way our public services not only are funded, but in the way they approach the work that they do so that there is more emphasis on helping to deal with demand, rather than simply dealing with the consequences of demand once that demand has crystallised.

Ysgrifennydd y Cabinet, we're all too aware that years of austerity have had a devastating impact on public services, and we've spoken before in this place that it's going to take more than last month's budget to finally turn that around. But we know too, as we've heard already this afternoon, that our local authorities face an immediate catalogue of challenges, and challenges that are felt most acutely in my corner of the country, whether that's in social care, the impact of legislation, or those bread-and-butter issues such as road repairs. So, felly, Ysgrifennydd y Cabinet, can I ask, in the context of the current climate, what consideration has and could be given to any shorter term funding solutions, whether that's around revenue and capital, or what scope is there to do things, do anything, differently—one of the things that's been suggested to me is around looking at reserves—but a way in which we can perhaps bridge that gap to, hopefully, a brighter financial future?

I thank the Member for that question. She's right about the pressures that local authorities face, but, 14 years into an era of resource constraint, public services of all sorts are facing those types of challenges. My aim in the budget next year is to assist our local authorities to move back from the brink of the worst of the challenges that they are facing and to allow them a pathway then beyond that into days when we hope they will have the resources they need to match the needs of their local populations. In the short run, I am in discussions of course with Cabinet colleagues about this year's budget. There is an increase in the resources available to the Welsh Government in the current year. And in the very short run, there are actions that we hope to be able to take to mitigate some of the pressures that our public services face. I am very anxious, in the spirit of the previous question, to encourage Cabinet colleagues and our public services to use short-term investments as a pathway to longer term sustainability. And there are ways in which capital expenditure, particularly, can be deployed to make the revenue resources that an authority has to be used more effectively and more efficiently. And it is those sorts of short-term steps that we are focusing on as part of that longer pathway into a time when our public services have the investments that they have been starved of for so long.

I thank the leader of the opposition for that question. Llywydd, a set of collaborative discussions took place with UK Ministers, focusing on Welsh priorities, ahead of the UK budget. These will continue as we head into the second phase of the UK spending review, which is due to conclude in the spring.

Thank you, finance Minister. It's a bit of a groundhog day standing here asking you questions. Obviously, one of the measures that came out of the UK Government budget was the increase in national insurance contributions to employers. That, potentially, has a devastating impact on the ability of companies to employ. A company employing someone on the medium wage would end up paying an additional £900 in national insurance, and, on the minimum wage, it would be £770. You are formulating the Welsh Government budget at the moment, finance Secretary. I wouldn't ask you to disclose what's in that budget, because you wouldn't tell me. But is there an ability for you, as finance Minister, to look at the ability of the resource that is available to the Welsh Government to reinstate the business rate relief at the full value that was prior to last year's Welsh Government budget of 75 per cent to Welsh businesses, because that would be a very useful tool in allowing money to be retained within those businesses and to offset the increased costs that those businesses face in employing people, going forward?

Llywydd, I thank Andrew R.T. Davies for that. The UK Government has said that it will provide compensation to public services for the additional national insurance contributions that public service employers will incur. The definition they are using of a public sector worker is the one used by the last Government and set out in the Office for National Statistics classifications.

I will be discussing with colleagues in the UK Government the impact that the change has on those who fall outside that ambit. I don’t have any plans to restore the level of temporary rate relief to tourism, leisure and hospitality. That is now in its fifth year of a temporary relief. It’s clear to me from the UK budget that that relief will not be repeated after the next financial year, because the Chancellor announced a new approach to multipliers for those sectors. We are on a glide path out of the help that has been there to help the sector recover from the COVID pandemic, and I think the glide path we have established in Wales is one that will help the sector to deal with the fact that that help is not going to be there in the long term and was never intended to be so.

Questions now from the party spokespeople. The Conservative spokesperson, Peter Fox.  

Diolch, Llywydd. Cabinet Secretary, we all know that public sector services rely heavily on those private providers—as Heledd Fychan has already pointed out, care homes, but domiciliary care providers as well. As a result of that recent budget and those increased costs, certainly around national insurance and the thresholds relating to that, we are going to see those providers really struggling. And they are fundamental to the delivery of our public services and for the recovery journey that we need to be on in many ways.

Now, we did see Wales offer, or going to put in place, 100 per cent relief from non-domestic rates for childcare providers across Wales, which was extremely welcome. Bearing in mind some of the things that Heledd was saying earlier, I wondered what support could the wider care sector be given to enable them to make sure they have resilience, and that they can continue to support our public sector in the way we need them to. We see so many unmet hours of need in domiciliary care, and if we see a further erosion of businesses that are delivering that, that will not help the current system we’re in.

Well, Llywydd, I give the Member an assurance that the needs of the care sector are being actively discussed as part of the budget-setting process. I was in a conversation with the health Minister and the social care Minister only this morning on that. The budget available to the Welsh Government next year does mean that we will be in a position to reinvest in our public services. That's not to the degree we would like, but the care sector is very much in our thoughts as we do that. We have provided the sector with support ever since the start of this Senedd term to meet the costs of the real living wage for those employed in domiciliary care, and it will be our ambition to continue to do that.  

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary, and I think we’re all on the same page in wanting to see these services really protected, because this rises above politics because it’s so fundamental to the whole of society, and we need to make progress on that.

Andrew R.T. Davies touched on some of the areas I was going to focus on in my second question, and that is looking at trying to put some reassurance for the struggling sectors that are fearful that future NDR relief may not continue in Wales, where we know that it is going to continue in England. But we know that they are freezing their multiplier there as well. Now, we have the use of, or to put a multiplier in now in Wales—. We haven’t used that yet. Is there an opportunity now, do you think, Cabinet Secretary, that we can use that multiplier opportunity to lessen the impact on the smaller businesses in our communities?

Llywydd, the first thing to say is that half of small businesses in Wales pay no business rates at all. So, the multiplier has no impact on them because they don’t pay anything in business rates. Over 30 per cent more of businesses in Wales have relief from at least part of their business rates. Only 20 per cent of businesses in Wales pay full business rates.

I myself believe that the system is ripe for quite fundamental reform when you get to a position in which only one in five businesses are actually paying business rates as are set. I think it tells you that, over the years, the system has built in reliefs here, added help there, and is ripe for a more fundamental look at it.

We took new powers in the Bill that went through the Senedd earlier this year to be able to respond more flexibly on the multiplier front. Those powers do not become available in Wales until 1 April next year. So, the budget that will come in front of the Senedd on 10 December reflects the current powers that we have, but there will be new possibilities for us as a result of the Senedd’s decision from next year onwards.

Thank you for that answer. I know it’s frustrating when we talk about non-domestic rates often, but when I was with colleagues from the Federation of Small Businesses yesterday, they were stressing again the pressures that NDR businesses are facing. So, there’s a mismatch between the narrative and the experience that businesses face.

Moving on to my last point, which moves us into a different area a little, we know that local authorities are facing some £560 million-worth of funding pressures—we’ve heard this a lot—on children’s services, social care and education, but I think there’s another time bomb out there, and that’s our crumbling infrastructure here in Wales, be that our potholed roads or our worn-out bridges. And there are hundreds of bridges, thousands of bridges, that need massive money spent on them. As we move into winter, these pressures are only set to increase, especially with the adverse weather we’ve seen over recent years. That increases things like flooding, but also a lot of landslides and the like. We’ve seen many of those, and they hang around for years sometimes because councils can’t seem to grapple with them. Cabinet Secretary, how will the Welsh Government help to ensure there is sufficient resilience within local government to enable them to cope and keep our communities safe and connected?

I thank Peter Fox for that third question. I should just simply say that what he described as 'the narrative' on non-domestic rates was simply a statement of fact. Those are the facts of the matter. Half of businesses in Wales pay no business rates at all, and another 30 per cent of them have their bills reduced by the public, because it is the other council tax payers and other income tax payers who are providing that help to those businesses.

On infrastructure, though, he makes some important points. This is where the budget of 30 October does mark a real step-change for public services. Because he will remember that Jeremy Hunt, in his budget in March, gave us £1 million in capital investment, and on 30 October, the Chancellor provided £235 million. That does mean that we are in a different position going into next year, and with a spring budget that will give us a further three years of capital budgets, we will be in a different position again to marshal the investment that is needed to repair the damage that has been done by resource starvation over the previous decade.

I am keen to make sure that local authorities have their share in that new set of possibilities, and I’m prepared to work imaginatively with local authorities, as we have in the past, to think about how we might be able to use some of the opportunities they can create in order to go on investing in their roads, in the maintenance of schools, and the other backlogs that we know have built up while resource has been in such short supply.

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Heledd Fychan.

Thank you, Llywydd. Cabinet Secretary, if I may return to some points that you made a little earlier in your response to Andrew R.T. Davies, just in terms of national insurance specifically, you mentioned the ONS definition, and that there was a possibility of using the same one as is currently being used, but there are very different figures in terms of which ONS definition is adopted, of course. The measure used by Stats Wales, which is the labour force survey, is far more favourable for Wales. Can I ask you, therefore, what definition you will be pressing for with the UK Government?

Well, the possibilities come to me because my intention is to be in London not next week, but the week after that, to have opportunities to have face-to-face meetings with Ministers in the Treasury. Of course, I'm there to provide information and evidence to them about the situation here in Wales—some of the points that we've heard already about the impact in the area of care, and so forth. So, that's why I'm going, just to be clear with the Treasury about things on the ground here, and through that, and through everything else that the Treasury will hear from people in England and Scotland as well, just for them to have the full information about the situation that we face in the public sector, but also with the agencies that we work with outside the public sector. 

Thank you. It will be very beneficial, and I hope that you can put that case forward, because you too, I'm sure, will have received a whole host of communications from third sector organisations who are extremely concerned about the situation. Last week, I mentioned Citizens Advice. Obviously, we've heard also from hospices, and Platfform have estimated an additional cost of £0.25 million; St John Ambulance, £50,000; Mirus, which is a care-sector organisation, an additional cost of £1.6 million. One council leader told me that it would cost £2.5 million for all the third sector organisations providing services for that council. So, what I'm asking is: in terms of the national insurance point particularly, what will you be asking for the ONS definition to be? As we accept that there are different definitions, what I would like to know specifically is: what will you be calling on the Chancellor to do to put this situation right?

Well, Llywydd, I'm not the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the decisions on national insurance contributions are not ones made by the Welsh Government. But, if I were the Chancellor, I'm sure I would be saying to you that the £1 billion extra that the Welsh Government has next year has to be paid for somehow, and that what she has done is to return the level of national insurance contributions by employers to where it was in 13 of the 14 years of the last Conservative Government. It's sometimes talked about as though she has done something absolutely extraordinary in increasing employer contributions, but she's put them back to where they were just 12 months earlier. Now, I will be making the case, not so much on a different definition, but I will be explaining to Treasury Ministers the impact that the rise in employer contribuitions will have here in Wales on those organisations that we rely on for public services, and beyond that as well. Because my job is to make sure that those who make decisions are as well informed as they can be of Welsh circumstances and Welsh needs, and that is what I will be doing. 

Thank you for that response. Clearly, the concern is that perhaps this decision by the Chancellor didn't take into account the broader implications of this increase, because clearly, it's in the face of cuts to budgets, too. So, I know you're talking about a period of 12 months, but the situation has declined for many of these organisations and they're under huge pressure. Can I ask you therefore, if there is no additional financial support for them in the budget, what's plan B in terms of the Welsh Government? Because you will have heard from your discussions with local government how concerned they are in terms of the third sector and the services that they provide—so many Welsh Government plans, for example, in order to tackle poverty, and so on, which are so crucial, are in the hands of the third sector. So, what is the Welsh Government's plan if the definition doesn't change?

Well, of course, Llywydd, it's my intention, with my colleagues, to use the extra money we have to be able to go on supporting the third sector and other organisations we are able to fund in Wales. They will have extra money from the Welsh Government, I feel confident, next year. I'm afraid you will have to wait to have a draft budget to see the extent of that, and then those organisations, like any other organisation, will have to look at the demands that they have to satisfy and how they prioritise the funding that is available to them. But the fact that we have £1 billion that we didn't have before 30 October will mean that those sectors will see some benefit from that, even if at the same time they have extra costs that they now need to meet.

Llywydd, the spending priorities for the Welsh Government will be set out in the draft budget on 10 December.

Thank you for that brief answer, Cabinet Secretary. One of the priorities that people in my constituency, and indeed the wider communities of Conwy and Denbighshire, want to see on your list is the delivery of a new community hospital for the people of north Denbighshire. It's long been promised, but thus far, unfortunately, there has been insufficient progress on the delivery of that promise. It's been 11 years since you made an announcement that there was going to be a new hospital with additional beds to take pressure off Glan Clwyd Hospital just down the road. When can people expect to see an announcement on the funding being available to deliver that project, so that once and for all we can deal with some of the acute pressures in our acute hospital site?

Well, Llywydd, I recognise the frustration that Darren Millar expresses, just as I recognise the consistency with which he has made the case for that investment. He will know that the 11 years since I was first able to identify that work as something the Welsh Government would wish to support, those 11 years have been 11 years of rising costs and falling resource, so that by the time the last full business case was submitted in March 2021, the costs had escalated to over £100 million.

However, two bits of better news for the Member: first of all, work has been going on, and I know he'll be aware of this, because there has been a wide range of partners involved in it, to review the scope of the development and to identify a realistic way forward. The scheme will, I'm sure, be seeking support both from the Welsh Government's health capital fund and from the rebalancing capital fund that we have between health and social care. We're expecting that that business case will be submitted to the Welsh Government for consideration in this financial year. So, that's one piece of—. I hope you will think that that is of good news, that we appear to have a date by which we will see that new plan. And the second piece of good news is that with £235 million additional capital available to us in Wales next year, then the needs of the health service will be much in my mind as I have discussions across the whole of the Welsh Government, and my hope will be that we will be able to see, compared to what we have had, a significant increase in the capital available to the NHS in Wales, so that schemes such as that at the Royal Alexandra can be moved forward.

Many of us over the years, including council leader Jason McLellan, the cabinet member Elen Heaton, and local member Barry Mellor, have been lobbying for investment in the Royal Alexandra. I was pleased to attend a meeting with the health board just last week and to hear that proposals have been updated so that the social healthcare need can be addressed, along with the minor injuries unit, and I was told that a fully costed plan will be presented next year to the health board and to Welsh Government. But I know that this cannot be achieved without the funds that I've been consistently calling for, and an end to the Tory austerity that starved Wales, and I was delighted that the UK Government understands this and wants to actually invest in public services. So, Cabinet Secretary, what difference will the £553 million extra capital funding—that's 250 times more than the previous UK Government—make to ensure that projects such as this really important one will actually go ahead?

I thank Carolyn Thomas for that and acknowledge that this development has been one that has been very widely supported by our local authorities, as well as the health board itself. The frustration has not been in the support for the scheme; the frustration has been in the lack of resource for us to be able to take forward so many of the necessary investments across Wales. Next year's uplift in capital will allow us to make a start in addressing the accumulated backlogs that have built up during the period of austerity, and it will make a material difference. It'll make a material difference both in the plans that are now maturing for the community provision and the interface between health and social care at the Rhyl site and in so many other aspects of public life in Wales. We heard earlier from Peter Fox, and he was making completely fair points about demands on local authorities for investment in transport infrastructure. Everywhere you look in Wales, 14 years of not having the investments we need has left demands that we cannot satisfy in a single year. But next year, quite certainly, we will be able to make a start on that journey in a way that was unimaginable back in March.

I thank Joyce Watson. The UK budget provides a much-needed boost for working people and takes the first steps to rebuilding vital public services. The UK Government has listened to what Wales needs, including providing £25 million towards coal tip safety and an increase in our settlement of £1.7 billion over two financial years.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. Of course, it was good news for us, receiving the best-ever settlement that we have had. The UK Minister said the budget will enable investment in schools and other public services, as an example. Cabinet Secretary, without disclosing too much—because I know you won't—are you able to give us any details on what difference the consequentials could have on education here in Wales, particularly on the additional learning needs sector?

I thank Joyce Watson for that. I gave her just one example of the Welsh-specific issues in the budget that she herself has often highlighted here on the floor of the Senedd. There are others as well; there's the Celtic free port investment, the hydrogen project in Milford Haven, to talk of just two in the Member's own immediate locality, on top of all the investments that the Member has highlighted in relation to carers, and unpaid carers as well.

In relation to education, I'm very well aware, from my conversations with the Cabinet Secretary for Education, of the extraordinary rise in the number of young people who are being identified as having additional learning needs. There has been funding year on year added to additional learning needs in Wales, but the call for that extra support has significantly outstripped previous estimates of what that call would be. So, in my conversations with her in preparing the budget, those new demands have been very much highlighted by her.

On the capital front that Joyce Watson mentioned, of course, here in Wales, the twenty-first century schools programme means that we're in a very different position, nearly a decade into that programme, than schools in England are facing. But I'm also aware, from the points made to me by both the Cabinet Secretary and local authority leaders as I've met them in recent weeks, of the repairs issue at a school level—not new schools now, but keeping the existing fabric of buildings up to the standard that they need to be. And on the capital side, that has also very much been part of my conversations with Lynne Neagle.

Following on from one of your answers earlier, one of the damaging consequences of the UK Government's recent budget was the national insurance hike on charities and third sector bodies. Office of Budget Responsibility figures show that the average annual tax increase for employers will be in excess of £800 per employee. With approximately 134,500 people working in the Welsh voluntary sector, even with part-time work this would suggest a total increase in the sector's national insurance bill of around £100 million a year. As the WCVA's letter to you states:

'Many voluntary organisations in Wales operate under tight financial constraints and play a vital role in delivering essential services alongside the public sector, yet only public sector employers are set to be reimbursed for these increased costs.

'This...is a significant new cost that many organisations simply cannot absorb without a corresponding impact on their service delivery.'

The Welsh Government relies on these services, so what, if any, support will you provide the charitable sector to safeguard these vital services and mitigate this short-sighted policy?

The Chancellor faced a £22 billion black hole in the income that she had available to her and the expenditure that had already been committed by the outgoing Conservative Government. That £22 billion black hole is almost exactly matched by the irresponsible tax cut in national insurance contributions of the previous Chancellor. So, the problem that is facing the sectors here in Wales is the legacy of the decisions made by that previous Government. I've already answered questions this afternoon, Llywydd, about the actions that I hope we will be able to take in supporting those sectors that are affected by that decision, and I don't think there's anything further that I can offer the Member this afternoon.

I thank Luke Fletcher for that. We remain on track to deliver the reforms announced for this Senedd term. The Local Government Finance (Wales) Act 2024 makes significant improvements, including more frequent revaluations, actions to address avoidance and, as from next year, a power to introduce differential multipliers.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary for that answer. I listened with great interest to the exchanges across the Chamber earlier on in this session. I take the Cabinet Secretary's point that half of businesses in Wales don't pay business rates, but I'm not sure if that detracts from the potential of varying the multiplier for business rates, because, as far as I can see it, what varying the multiplier could do is shift the burden of who pays those business rates, and whether or not they are paying enough of that share of the overall pot. If we look at that, and we do shift that burden, there's a potential there to free up some of that cash that we use for business rate relief to be invested elsewhere. Is that fair to say? In anticipating the Government gaining the ability to use the powers in the local government finance Act, what preparatory work is being done in the context of wider reform of the system?

I thank Luke Fletcher for that, and I apologise for the fact that I ran out of time before answering this point that he made in the debate we had on these matters last week. He's absolutely right, that is exactly how the multiplier operates: it shifts the burden of business rates from smaller businesses to larger businesses.

The issue that you face in Wales is that our pattern of businesses is very different to the pattern in England. There, it is much easier, I believe, to shift the burden to very large employers, because the number of very large employers in England is very different to the number of large employers in the Welsh economy. The average rateable value in Wales is £19,000, and the average in England is £34,000. The structures of our economy mean that some of the policy levers available across our border are not as easily used here in Wales.

That does not mean to say that they cannot be used at all, and that's why the powers in the 2024 Act are important. We undertook, during the passage of that Act, to consult on any proposals to introduce differential multipliers here in Wales, so work is going on to map what the impact would be of moving in that direction. But I can provide an assurance to Members that whatever proposals come forward will be subject to the full consultation that the Senedd was anxious to see during the passage of that Bill.

I've listened eagerly to what's already been said, but these proposed changes to business rates in Wales have been driven by a Welsh Labour Government that has already slashed small business relief from the 75 per cent to 40 per cent, and as a result, small family-run businesses like our local pubs and restaurants are now paying significantly higher rates than their counterparts in England, as you've said. I've spoken to many business owners who feel the strain and believe that this Government simply doesn't understand or care about business. These enterprises are the backbone of our communities. As you said, some don't have to pay business rates, but still, there are many that do. So, will you commit today, as part of these so-called reforms, that the Welsh Labour Government will consider reinstating the 75 per cent relief for small businesses in Wales, for those that are still being affected?

I've already said that I don't have any plans to reinstate it. We're investing an additional £78 million this year to provide a fifth successive year of temporary support for those sectors. The Member says 'some' businesses don't pay business rates—50 per cent of businesses don't pay any business rates in Wales. It's not just 'some'; almost half of them don't. And of those that do, another 30 per cent—more than 30 per cent—get help, on a sliding scale, with those bills. We invest, year on year, over £300 million of taxpayers' money in providing relief for businesses here in Wales. We're pleased to do that, because it allows those businesses to create the conditions in which they can be successful. But the notion that businesses in Wales are short-changed by the system we have simply doesn't bear practical examination.

I thank Peter Fox. Our focus is on keeping our taxes clear, simple and stable. Through this and such things as our non-domestic rates support package, we demonstrate our commitment to supporting businesses in Wales.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. Soon, this Parliament will undergo scrutiny of the tourism levy here in Wales—a new dimension to your taxation policy, should its passage be secured. My colleagues and I, as you know, strongly oppose the implementation of such a levy and I know that businesses across Wales have deep anxiety over its impact. They and we do not believe that it will support the industry—to the contrary, we believe it will damage our economy.

We know that it will be down to local authorities to manage this levy. However, too often, we see councils forced to rely on revenue raising to make up for rising pressures that the local government settlement hasn't always addressed. With this in mind, Cabinet Secretary, what safeguards can be given to the tourism sector that, if this tax succeeds in coming forward, it will be used as additional investment and not funnelled to support other struggling services?

I look forward to bringing the visitor levy Bill to the floor of the Senedd. I completely disagree with the viewpoint of the Conservative Party; it is a way of dealing with the impact of tourism in those parts of Wales that most rely upon it that helps to make sure that those places go on being attractive to visitors in the future. Right around the globe, this has been used and there is no evidence that it leads to a detrimental impact, because the money that is raised will be reinvested in making sure that the things that bring tourists to an area go on being available to them. When the Bill is introduced, the Member will see that it uses a definition that would require those local authorities who choose to have a visitor levy—. Because it's not just that local authorities will administer the levy, it will be for local authorities to decide whether or not this is a useful tool in their armoury. It is part of this Government's commitment to devolution not just to Wales but within Wales. The way in which the money collected by a visitor levy is deployed will also be subject to an annual consultation with tourism businesses in that area. So, the businesses concerned will have a direct voice in the way in which that revenue is deployed. I am confident that our local authorities will use the money, should they choose to raise it, in ways that make that industry, which is very important in a number of our local authorities in Wales, an industry that goes on being successful and attractive into the future.

Thank you very much, of course, for the question, Llywydd. We are drafting our response to the report by the Commission for Welsh-speaking Communities at the moment. When we review 'Future Wales', we will consider all evidence, including the commission's recommendations.

Yesterday, when discussing the Welsh Language Commissioner's annual report and her role in policy development, I mentioned the importance of ensuring that one aspect of the Government's policy work doesn't undermine other policy work.

Another area where there is potential for conflict is with the Government's 'Future Wales' national development plan, and the work of developing strategic development plans through the corporate joint committees. I'd ask the Government to reconsider the principles driving this work, because there is a danger that the regional strategic plans will militate against important policy work that's taking place through the Commission for Welsh-speaking Communities, and also militate against the Arfor plan, which unites areas in the west of our country.

What, therefore, is your vision, as Cabinet Secretary for the Welsh language, from the perspective of the areas of high-intensity linguistic significance, and what is your vision for Arfor 3, which is the next sensible step to take with this innovative plan?

I thank Siân Gwenllian. Llywydd, I listened carefully to the points that she made in yesterday's debate, and I've already spoken to officials this morning to have more advice on the point that she raised about where one policy conflicts with other policies. So, thank you for raising those points.

As I'm sure Siân Gwenllian knows, we're waiting for a specific report from the Commission for Welsh-speaking Communities in the area of planning, which was part of the first phase of the commission, but they have decided to provide a separate report in December, hopefully, about their recommendations in the area of planning. So, we can use that. And my ambition is to use the experiences that we've already had with Arfor 1 and Arfor 2 to build on some of the recommendations in the report that we've seen already and that was launched in the Eisteddfod. I'm looking forward to returning to the floor of the Senedd next year with the Government's response to all of the recommendations in the first report, and considering the points made by Siân Gwenllian this afternoon in the process of responding to the recommendations.

Finally, question 8, Rhys ab Owen.

Llywydd, in addition to our work across Wales to promote the Welsh language to help ensure that it is a language for all, we ask all local authorities to provide information in their Welsh in education strategic plan annual reports on how they promote the Welsh language among ethnic minority communities.

Thank you very much, Cabinet Secretary. When I attended a Welsh-medium primary school in Cardiff in the 1990s, there was just one child from an ethnic minority in a year of 70 children, and there was just one Muslim family at the school of over 400 children. Now, things have improved, but there is a lot of work to do still, and we certainly can't attract children from families where Welsh and English are not the first language—that's obvious when you visit schools in Riverside and Canton.

Now, I've asked a similar question to you recently, but I have the figures now, and the figures across Wales show that just 2.5 per cent of children from families where Welsh and English are not the first language receive Welsh education. If you take Gwynedd out, the figure falls to 1.6 per cent. They're shocking figures, and they're not small figures in terms of the numbers of children—1.6 per cent of children from families where English and Welsh are not the first language receive Welsh education. I'm sure we understand the reason, that parents want their children to speak English, but that is possible through Welsh education. We know that. So, will the Cabinet Secretary make a commitment to undertake a specific campaign to attract minority ethnic children to Welsh education?

Well, Llywydd, I agree with Rhys ab Owen on the importance of attracting more children from BAME communities into Welsh-medium education. I recall in the first year of Ysgol Treganna, there wasn't a single person, no-one at all, from a minority ethnic community at the school, and now the school is very different indeed.

I want to see more possibilities in terms of bringing people into the sector, and the way to do that, or one of the ways of doing it, in my opinion, is by using the experiences that we've now had with families from those communities in order to explain to others, and to use word of mouth, and to persuade them that a child who attends a school where the education is provided through the medium of Welsh of course will understand, and will learn English simultaneously, but they will also be able to speak Welsh.

So, we have been successful, but we haven't yet done enough. But now, with those families who've already been through the experience, we can use the lessons that they've learned, and the experiences that they've had, to persuade others.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary.

Item 2 is questions to the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs, and the first question is from Tom Giffard.

Yes. The coastal risk management programme construction scheme at Mumbles is progressing at pace. The risk management authority have confirmed that the construction is due to complete in April 2025.

Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Brif Weinidog, for the update. These works to defend the coastline of Mumbles are very welcome, and much needed to safeguard the village, hopefully long into the future. The attraction and the appeal of Mumbles doesn't need to be explained. I think many of us understand that. But also what makes Mumbles what it is are the local businesses that thrive and operate in the village. But the works have caused significant disruption for them in terms of reduced parking and reduced footfall in recent months. I've been speaking with local Mumbles councillors Francesca O'Brien, Will Thomas and Angela O'Connor, who tell me that those businesses feel unsupported whilst those works go on, and have received no financial assistance. So, Cabinet Secretary, will you look at the assistance on offer to support businesses who suffer disruption to their business when works like these flood defences take place? 

Thank you, it's a really important point, and you, like me, who love the Mumbles, recognise the importance of this work, and getting it done in a timely manner as well. It's a significant piece of work and it does cause disruption to some extent. Indeed, we understand that the risk management authority and also the contractors have acknowledged the impact of the construction within the community, and they're working with the community liaison officer to try and reduce the impacts.

Now, the construction works have been programmed to try and reduce the impact to local businesses, even with regard to my comments there that they acknowledge that there is an impact, and also to residents to reduce the impact on residents. So, access to businesses remains open throughout the construction, I'm told, and deliveries are programmed as well to minimise disruption to the operation of those businesses. The contractors, I'm told, are also providing monthly drop-in sessions for businesses and for residents as well, but if I could urge any residents or businesses to get involved with those regular drop-in sessions and to feed back their views through the risk management authority and to the contractors.

But can I simply say, Tom, as well, as you do—it was good to hear you welcome the works that are going on because they are much needed. It's protecting 126 properties at a cost of £26.5 million, which is 85 per cent funded by Welsh Government. It also, as you and I know, has those wider benefits, including regeneration of those lovely public open spaces on the front and the objectives, of course, are those of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. So, please urge your constituents to keep feeding in their thoughts on any disruption, but I'm told that both the contractor and the risk management authority really want to minimise it and to work with residents and businesses. 

There is significant interest in seaweed farming in Wales for a range of purposes. We are supportive of industry-led growth of the aquaculture sector and would welcome any proposals from industry that deliver growth in our coastal communities whilst aligning with the policies of the Welsh national marine plan.

Cabinet Secretary, as you are aware, the global seaweed market is valued at over £7 billion and has an annual growth rate of around 12 per cent. It is increasingly used in food products, animal feed, cosmetics, biofuels, bioplastics and fertiliser, but despite our potential in the UK to grow and harvest seaweed, we are heavily reliant on imported seaweed from Asia, which accounts for up to 95 per cent of all total supplies. Seaweed farming is hampered in the UK by insufficient seeding supplies, logistical issues and a lack of processing facilities, which prevents the potential growth of the industry. 

The marine plan area around Wales is 32,000 sq km, of which 50 per cent is suitable for cultivating kelp, and there is enormous potential for us to develop seaweed cultivation commercial ventures, which has been estimated to be worth over £100 million a year to the Welsh economy. I recognise that work is being done to help generate this industry, however the pace is far too slow and we need to act. We need you, Cabinet Secretary, to set out a robust and forward-thinking plan for growing this industry in Wales. When can we expect to see such a plan being brought forward? Thank you.

Thank you very much, Joel, and I notice your consistent advocacy for the potential of the seaweed sector for all of those diverse applications, which do have really exciting potential. We have noted there is significant interest in the potential benefits of seaweed farming, but—and it is a big 'but', Joel—we've yet to see this actually translated into viable projects and commercial propositions. And, of course, we also need to be cognisant of analysing that in terms of the wider marine environment and marine planning as well, if they were to come forward. 

But one thing that might be of help and that you could encourage, Joel, people to feed into—. I will be setting out a strategic approach to Welsh fisheries and aquaculture—via a written statement, Llywydd, if it receives your approbation as well—within the next few weeks. So, in the meantime, I expect our future direction to remain as we've already set out with the delivery of sustainable management at its core, and a focus on delivery of fisheries management plans and adapted management measures. All of this needs to be supported by the science and engagement with stakeholders. So, we will continue to deliver this in line with our statutory duties on fisheries and aquaculture. We will seek opportunities and initiatives to support the industry to develop and grow, but we need to see those proposals coming forward and the commercial viability of them, and them fitting in with our wider sustainability of the marine environment. 

On a final point, our regular funding rounds through the Welsh marine and fisheries scheme, Joel, will be designed to underpin the priorities that help deliver those outcomes that we all want to see.

I recently took an opportunity to visit Câr-y-Môr regenerative seaweed and shellfish farm in St Davids—well, not actually in St Davids; in the water off St Davids—and they're going to build a new seaweed processing facility, and it'll be the first of its kind in Wales. Seaweed, as you will know, has biostimulants and contains substances that are mostly organic. Those stimulate plants' natural processes for growth, flowering, fruiting and resistance to drought, heat and cold. Can you look at the possibility, and you mentioned some of them, of supporting this as a way of sustainable farming? Because those biostimulants are an alternative to synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, so they feed nicely into that sustainable farming agenda that you have.

So, what I'm really asking is, they're going through a trial and testing stage at the moment—because you're right, the viability of the project is key—but will you support them to go through that testing procedure so that, if that viability is what we hope it will be, it sustains our environment for the future, but also sustains farming for the future and growing for the future as well?

Joyce, thank you very much for that question and, again, I recognise your sustained advocacy for the potential of this sector and particularly for Câr-y-Môr. And indeed, Câr-y-Môr, the first commercial seaweed farm within Wales, located off Ramsey Sound in St David’s, interestingly, it is a community benefit society and it does have some exciting potential in terms of producing seaweed-based biofertilizer and livestock feed additives, and the potential of that in the reduction of methane as well. So, it is genuinely exciting, but they are at those early stages and there are challenges in bringing this forward.

There can also be potential with bringing shellfish produce to the domestic market I understand, with a current capacity to process, I’m told, some four tonnes per day of fresh seaweed, and they are looking to expand further. So, we would definitely encourage initiatives like this. There are challenges in getting these off the ground and taking them from the early stages and growing them. But we’re keen to support, as I said in my response to Joel as well, where there is potential, to encourage and support them to get through those barriers and to grow in that context as well of the wider marine environment and marine planning as well. So, they need to be commercially viable—we’re certainly encouraging of them—and fit within our sustainability approach for fisheries and agriculture.

Questions now from the party spokespeople. Conservative spokesperson, Janet Finch-Saunders.

Diolch, Llywydd. The risk and cost of increased rainfall due to climate change are rising without doubt, with extreme weather events becoming more frequent. Last winter, Natural Resources Wales issued 483 flood alerts—a 16 per cent increase on the previous year. UK winters are now 10 per cent wetter.

Increasing rainfall is, though, putting increased pressure on our reservoirs. Earlier this year, the Rapidan Dam in Blue Earth county, Minnesota failed due to intense flooding, leading to urgent evacuation of nearby residents. Similarly, here in the UK in 2019, thousands of people were evacuated from Whaley Bridge because part of a reservoir wall had collapsed, and, a decade ago, a whole village in Gwynedd had to be evacuated due to a landslide that caused a crack in a nearby reservoir.

Now, there’s been much talk about coal tip safety, and, really, what I’m very concerned about—. My own constituency saw a dreadful disaster in Dolgarrog. You announced last week by written statement that you will be co-operating with the UK Government to reform reservoir safety. Bearing in mind that there are over 20 privately owned and high-risk reservoirs in Wales, why was this not brought before our Senedd for scrutiny?

Thank you very much, Janet, for that question. Reservoir safety is a key issue for Welsh Government and the opportunity has arisen to work with the UK Government on an England-and-Wales basis to review the whole landscape of the regulation of reservoirs across England and Wales. And I think it’s right that we take that opportunity because, where there is a will to work across Governments and to make sure that we have a fit-for-purpose now and for the future, when, as you rightly say, we are facing, not just increased in rainfall but deluges—. As we look to the advice from the Met Office, we’re not only seeing increasing levels of rainfall, but rainfall that stops over areas, as we have seen recently, but not only, in the tragedies unfolding within Spain and other parts of central Europe. Now, this does cause major issues for all of our infrastructure, including reservoirs. So, we are keen to work with the UK Government on this jointly. It's a signal of the approach that we are taking now that we have a Government at the other end of the M4 that is willing to work with us on it. But, rest assured, there will be opportunities, undoubtedly, for the Senedd also to consider the way forward. We've started on the engagement with the UK Government, but we'll make sure those opportunities are here as well, for the committee, and for Senedd Members, Janet.

Now, the written statement outlined the ambition to create a modern approach to hazard management and updating regulation and enforcement. There are concerns, though, for funding. NRW alone has 20 high-risk reservoirs, and they've already spent £2.68 million in 2019-20, and £3.72 million in 2020-21 on only 10, and they were essential safety projects. That's averaging out at around £600,000 per reservoir. Bearing in mind the phenomenal costs that can be associated with making our reservoirs more substantial, do you stand by your comments to the Senedd last month that every private owner of a reservoir now needs to know that they have these responsibilities, and, with them, the liability?

Thank you, Janet. I absolutely stand by that. Anybody who owns a reservoir on their land, big or small, that is caught within the regulations needs to be very clear on their responsibilities. It's an onerous responsibility to take on the maintenance and the public safety aspects of actually having a reservoir on your land. Now, every landowner should be aware of those—they should be aware of them. But, if they're not, you, and I, and others, along with NRW, need to signal them directly, to make sure that they are aware of that and what that means. Because this is not only a case of public taxpayer money going towards the large assets that are controlled in different parts of Wales and England, it's also those large companies, such as Dŵr Cymru and others, who have large reservoir assets. They know their responsibilities and their liabilities. But it's also those smaller landowners who have reservoirs. I noticed with interest recently there was an advertisement for a reservoir for sale—one that those of us within the south Wales area know quite well. It was pitched as a very attractive real estate proposition. We would hope that—what do we call them in this country; we don't call them real estate agents—[Interruption.]—yes, indeed—those people who are selling the land are also making clear to the potential buyers that they are aware of the liabilities that come with taking on a property with a reservoir on it. Because it carries significant responsibilities.

I'm aware of conveyancing methods whereby, sometimes, they don't always inform, when you're buying land, of your obligations regarding culverts, ditches and whatever, but also too with reservoirs. Now, between 2019 and 2021, £0.5 million of taxpayers' money was spent on orphan reservoirs. I find this fascinating, because it just baffles me how people can walk away from responsibilities, and then these reservoirs are classed as orphan reservoirs. It bothers me why, under Land Registry rules, you can't find out who owns them. And also, only £20,000 has been allocated to NRW's reservoir regulation team for their work in relation to the private reservoirs. There isn't a single penny of support for owners of private reservoirs, despite the costs that could be involved, and, more, the significant risk to whole communities. I believe this situation can be, potentially, as dangerous as coal tip safety. So, with around 20 privately owned reservoirs in Wales classified as high risk, wouldn't it be wiser now, Cabinet Secretary, as part of the new reservoir approach that you will be developing with the UK Government, to take a more proactive approach, which sees the state and the private owners co-operate together? It's not something that private landowners will or can do on their own. And then we've got the orphan reservoirs, and then we've got other reservoirs, owned by Dŵr Cymru and things like that. So, do you think you could almost have a task and—I don't like 'task and finish group', but a taskforce, to make sure that there's a cohesive approach to this?

Thank you, Janet. I'm worried, Llywydd, that we might run out of people to people these task and finish groups. We might run out of the great Welsh will to, actually, work with us on it. But, look, I do take the serious point behind this. This is the exact reason why we are doing this proper joined-up approach to look at it, because the same issues, by the way, are happening right over the border, the other side of Offa's Dyke. As a former Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Minister with responsibility for this area, crikey, 15 years ago now, I'm very aware that we're facing the same challenges. So, I think the regulatory joint work that we're doing is the right way to do it. I look forward, if the Senedd or the committee looks at the issue of how we actually fund this, in ideas coming forward. But let me make it very clear: this cannot nor should not fall entirely on the taxpayer. If I owned a piece of land with a reservoir on it, grand or small, it is my liability within that. Now, there are ways in which we can assist, looking at this going forward.

The other assurance I want to give, because there is a danger within this, particularly when we've seen some of the near-catastrophic incidents in other parts of the UK, is to give the assurance that NRW and the risk management authorities tightly monitor the condition of these reservoirs, so we're not looking at imminent danger or damage from any of these small or large reservoirs; they're tightly risk assessing them. That's why we know, by the way, where the risks are, same as with coal tips—the piece of work that we've done within Welsh Government. But now we need to look properly at, well, how do we make sure that the responsibilities and the liabilities that come from having a reservoir on your land—big and small—are properly accounted for. And yes, you raise the important point of orphan reservoirs, where they are left as stranded not assets but liabilities. Well, that's part of what we're looking at as well, how we deal with that. And I look forward to having the opportunity in front of the Senedd or in front of committees to engage in this in more detail.

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Delyth Jewell. 

Diolch, Llywydd. The warning signals of climate breakdown are flashing red, with intensifying floods, storms, heatwaves. Climate leadership by Wales and the UK is more essential than ever. But the imminent return of Trump, a recognised climate denier, means the prospect of the US once again abandoning the Paris agreement looms large. Analysts predict Trump's agenda could pump billions more tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. In that context, Keir Starmer's pledge to cut UK emissions by 81 per cent by 2035, it's a step in the right direction. It must surely be seen as a baseline not a limit, though. Could you clarify, please, what conversations you've had with the UK Government about that new pledge, and, crucially, to what degree the Welsh Government has been involved in shaping that goal? Can you assure us that Wales's specific needs, our perspectives, are being taken into account as we respond to this urgent, increasingly alarming climate crisis?

Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much for raising this on the floor today in the middle of these hundreds of climate conversations that we're having right across Wales this week, with young people, older people, community groups, business, commerce, academics and so on. I've been deep in those conversations this week, and there is a serious acknowledgement across Welsh civic society of the way we need, individually and collectively, as Government and individual citizens, to step up to the mark so that we can deal with what is already locked in there, which is around 1.5 degrees and, actually, turn the dial back down and make sure that we can get ahead of this. And we can do it.

I was speaking to young people, as part of our, if you like, COP with young people, in the peace temple in Cathays Park today—hundreds of young children from across Wales; there's another event in Wrexham later on this week there—and they're absolutely driving us, in the same way, Delyth, that I've had those conversations with our UK Ministers to say, 'We will support you to show leadership, go further.' I'm delighted to see that—. I understand you've described it as a 'step'; I think it's, actually, a step change from what we've seen in recent years, to say an 81 per cent cut in emissions, and, yes, Wales will be not only at the table with UK Ministers in making sure that that fits in what we are doing. We know the three biggest challenges for us in Wales are manufacturing and industry—and we want manufacturing and industry, but—actually helping them go through that transition towards a greener, fairer future; it's in transport, of course, and we need to bring forward that bus Bill, we need to invest in rail and we need to invest in walking and cycling as well and all those other modal shifts; and it's in agriculture, and the work we do with farmers not to farmers, so that we can help them so that we can help them build in climate resilience. But we need to drive those emissions down. We are quietly confident that we’re on target to bring in Wales within carbon budget 2, in terms of where we are, but carbon budget 3, which we’re already working on—and we will need all of your support—will be like Eryri compared to the hill I walk up on the way back home every night. It will be a lot steeper.

Thank you for that and for setting down that challenge. It’s fair to expect that, given this new commitment on a UK level to accelerate emissions targets, this will come with increased Government support for a just transition, and you’ve just been setting that out. Now, that creates a vital opportunity for us to take forward all of those ambitions you have set out, Cabinet Secretary. The Wales Net Zero 2035 Challenge Group have provided clear pathways for achieving net zero by 2035. Now, as you’ve just outlined, the Senedd will soon decide carbon budget 4 targets. The next Welsh Government will outline its strategy for carbon budget 3. There is a pressing need for Wales to align with that faster pace. So, is the Welsh Government giving serious consideration to adopting the Wales Net Zero 2035 Challenge Group pathways in order to reach net zero by 2035 because of this accelerated commitment that’s needed?

Yes, thank you, Delyth. My predecessor was really pleased, with the support of colleagues as well, to establish that 2035 challenge group. They’ve done remarkable work, they really have. But even they recognise—and I pay tribute to Jane Davidson in chairing that, but also all the individuals who brought their ideas together—that there are parts of their proposals to get to 2035 net zero that will be incredibly challenging not just for Government, but for individuals. So, we are going to consider seriously everything that is within that report.

But I think, in this just transition piece, and bringing people with us, we also need to not just think about the scientific evidence that underpins how we get there, in the data driving towards reducing emissions and decarbonisation and so on, but we need to use the behavioural sciences and how we bring people with us, and where there are those nudges, regulations and other things making it easy for people to make the right choices. I got onto the train the other day going to the Netherlands—the train, there’s a choice; not a plane, a train. But when I got onto the train at Cardiff first thing in the morning, I picked up, from that kiosk we all know there, a coffee. I got onto that train, with the coffee in front of me and said to the colleague who was travelling with me, ‘Look at that. Why is that significant?’ Because we in Wales, with the support of citizens in Wales, have changed our approach to single-use plastics. There was not a bit of plastic within it. It was all branded, recyclable material. I didn’t have to think about that; I just went and bought a cup of coffee, and there it was—Wales making a difference. And there’s the message this week as well, because we’re in climate week, because some of those climate change deniers will say, ‘What can Wales do?’ Well, we can change the world. We just have to show the leadership. 

We absolutely can change the world. And one of the possibly more quiet elements of that—a quiet element of changing our natural world, but an element that is nevertheless fundamentally important—is about addressing biodiversity loss. In your recent session with the climate change committee on this, you set out that the biodiversity targets under the environmental governance Bill could take up to three years after the Bill is passed. Given that we expect the Bill to pass in 2026, that could mean delays until 2029. Now, that is a serious concern because the legislation is crucial to Wales’s responsibility to halt biodiversity loss, and, yes, changing the natural world. And I head some sniggers from another part of the Chamber when we said that, but that is essentially what we’re looking to do. Could you assure us that you’re working to shorten that time frame as much as possible, to start to develop those targets in parallel with the Bill’s passage, so that we can meet this urgent challenge of reversing biodiversity loss by 2030, because the longer the delay, the more irreversible losses we’ll see, and the more things that we’ll lose that we’ll never get back in our natural world?

Yes, Delyth, you’re absolutely right. And the biodiversity restoration piece goes hand in hand with the climate adaptation and resilience piece. We need to do both together. I had significant challenge from that committee when I set out our working timetable on bringing forward the targets. There is a rationale behind it, which I’m keen to share with the committee, but I’m also keen to come back in front of the committee and see whether—and it is the question I put back to my officials—we can expedite the progress towards bringing those targets earlier, whilst getting the right targets and making sure that they are the right targets and they’re well grounded in the evidence as well. So, let’s carry on that discussion. I was taken by the pushback from committee, from you and the Chair and others. So, let’s see where we get to. It’s a Bill in progress. I’m always a Minister who likes to work with committees to see if we can make improvements.

Since the UK Government published their budget on 30 October, Welsh Government officials have had numerous discussions with the UK Government on this matter.

Cabinet Secretary, this week, I heard from a local farmer in Monmouthshire who fears that small family farms like hers will be driven into the ground by Labour’s changes to inheritance tax, turning once thriving farms into prey for developers and ripping apart the heart of our rural communities. Let’s call it what it is: it’s a Labour-driven rural land grab. But it gets worse, earlier this week, former senior Labour aid John McTernan said, and I quote,

'we don’t need small farmers',

and this is

'an industry we can do without'.

It’s disgraceful, and I ask you, Cabinet Secretary, do Mr McTernan’s views reflect the disdain that Labour harbours for the working people of the countryside who tirelessly work to feed our nation? Will you stand up to the UK Labour Government, who are sacrificing the backbone of our agricultural communities while senior Labour figures imply our small farms are disposable?

Laura, thank you for that question. Let me say where I am exactly. First of all, I think we should take real pride in the fact that, on 30 October, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, presented the first ever UK budget by a female Chancellor in British history. It does represent, Laura, I must say, the first steps towards fixing 14 years' damage that has been caused to our public services and our communities by the previous Conservative UK Government. But, the Government have had to make some very tough decisions, addressing challenges inherited from the previous administration.

Now, whilst there are indeed concerns about the impacts of changes to inheritance tax, specifically the agricultural property relief, and those are understandable, it’s certainly not helpful to speculate on numbers of affected farms given the many complex factors that are involved. Those include the farm ownership structures, the inheritance plans, the applicable reliefs that may apply, which all affect the application of APR. Farm values themselves also fluctuate, making it quite difficult to estimate how many are valued over the IHT threshold at any given point. But, simply to say, this is a reserved matter, but I am very aware, and I was at the NFU Cymru conference last week and spoke not only on the platform, taking questions on this and many other matters, like the sustainable farming scheme and many other things, but I also spoke to farmers directly about it as well. I have farmers in my extended family as well who I’ve also had discussions with. They will be taking advice on this to see whether or not this does affect them.

But in the absence of specific figures, because of all those complexities, I think the Treasury figures that have been presented about their estimate of the scale of farms that will be affected—. And bear in mind, there is a different structure, by and large, to farms in Wales. When we talk about family farming in Wales, those small and medium-scale farms, it is by characteristic significantly different from what there might be on average across the other side of the border in England. So, we have to see how this works out. I understand NFU Cymru and others will be making representations to the Chancellor, and I wish them well with that, to put forward the data and the evidence on their analysis. But, meanwhile, it is a reserved matter, Llywydd.

And the question is: will you be making those representations as well?

Now, you’re right—the nature of farms between England and Wales is very different. I’ve actually been looking at some of the Welsh Government’s own figures. The sustainable farming scheme’s economic impact assessment, published at the end of last year, considers the farms responsible for around 84 per cent of Wales’s total utilised agricultural area, 89 per cent of Welsh agricultural standard output, and 93 per cent of total grazing livestock—so, basically, working farms in Wales. The area of the farms considered in that report equates to an average farm value that’s well over double the proposed £1 million agricultural property relief threshold, equating to an inheritance tax bill that could actually be six times or more the average annual income of livestock farmers in Wales. So, the First Minister says that a very small proportion of Welsh farms would be affected. You've said that you don't have the figures to be able to quantify that, so I'm not sure where the First Minister got the figure. But, your own figures, published less than 12 months ago, suggest a very different picture—that a vast number of farms in Wales would not only be affected, but they won't be, actually, in a position to be able to afford to pay the tax bill. So, the question here is: will the Welsh Government, therefore, commit to publishing a comprehensive analysis of the possible impacts of the new APR threshold for all farm sizes and categories to answer the question that you've actually posed here yourself? And that, of course, doesn't include, then, the smallholdings and the other holdings that your own Government excluded from your economic impact assessment for the sustainable farming scheme.

So, Llyr, look—thank you for that question—for the reasons I outlined before, that every single farm, as we know, is very, very different, and they're different in how they approach their tax advice, whether they gift, whether there is a spousal arrangement as well, the application of this will be very, very different on every single individual landholding. So, to actually do what some have been asking, which is, 'Can you give us the specific number of farms that will be affected?', it is not possible—[Interruption.] It is not possible to do it, Llyr. [Interruption.]

Allow the Cabinet Secretary to provide the response now. 

So, what the First Minister was doing was, rightly, referring to the published His Majesty's Treasury data. Now, the HMT figures show that most farms will be unaffected by these changes. They show that, for 2021-22, in the most recent available data, across the whole of the United Kingdom there were just 462 claims for agricultural relief that were more than £1 million, and extrapolations have been made by some people then about what that means for Wales. But, let me add to that. Paul Johnson, the director of the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies has concluded that the changes should only affect a small number of the most valuable farms. However, as I said in response to the initial question, if stakeholders such as farming unions are able to generate alternative data, I'd be interested myself to look at that, but they need also to present that, as I understand they will be doing, to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in London; not to my colleague here, but actually to Rachel Reeves. 

And it is important that all members of the farming unions, but also those who are not members of the farming unions, who will be listening to something of the clamour over this now, get into the detail of this and take good, sound advice. And, by the way, Llywydd, Farming Connect also are one of the organisations in this space, but I know that some farmers will be taking their own independent advice as well, which they will pay for, and so on. But, the details of the changes are all on HMT's website.

And simply to say, on one aspect that I haven't been asked about today but is really important in terms of this, the Welsh Government did, indeed, work with the UK Government to make sure that Welsh farmers joining the work that we're still doing on the sustainable farming scheme are not disadvantaged in any way by the agricultural property relief proposals. So, we're very keen to make sure that that is there as well. So, meanwhile, I would also say that I do have a worry, Llywydd—something of a worry—that some of the understandable noise around this will heighten worries and anxiety out there, and I do want to make sure that we refer anybody who is concerned about this not only to take good advice and to do the rational economic and fiscal thing for their farm, but also to know that there is support out there as well from many farming charities, such as the DPJ Foundation, Tir Dewi, RABI and the Farming Community Network. So, anybody who is worried about this, beyond the financial measures, 'Pick up the phone; there are people to talk to about this as well.'

This year, the Welsh Government has allocated £1.7 million to Cardiff Council for three capital schemes and £119,000 for three small-scale projects under the flood and coastal risk management programme. We have also provided over £32 million to Cardiff Council to construct a coastal defence scheme under the coastal risk management programme.

Diolch, Dirprwy Brif Weinidog. Some in this Chamber will remember the big floods in the early 1980s. I have only seen photos of them, when Cathedral Rd and many parts of Pontcanna and Canton were under water. But, Cardiff is still under threat from flooding. Rainfall just this year left many streets left many streets under water, and a couple had to be rescued from their car—in the capital city. Because Cardiff is fighting flooding on three fronts: we're the fourth most at-risk city from rising sea levels; we have three rivers flowing through Cardiff; and they then flow into the Severn estuary, the second highest tidal estuary in the whole world. In total, flooding is estimated to cost £200 million in damage every year, without the personal impact on individuals. Due to the high risk of flooding in Cardiff, will the Welsh Government expedite the future flooding framework, to help build flood resilience in the capital city? Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you, Rhys, for that follow-up question. We're keen to do everything within our power, including some of the significant quantum of funding that I indicated in my initial response to you, which we are giving to Cardiff for a range of things. And you're right: it's actually river fluvial flooding combined with deluges, and surface water flooding, combined with coastal inundation and rising sea levels. In this week that we are having these conversations around climate action, we need to have those conversations with communities in Cardiff, which we are having as well, about their ideas of how we turn this around. But we will maintain, and we have, indeed, both last year and this year going ahead, record levels of investment in flood mitigation and alleviation.

It's not all hard defences. Some of this is to do, including in parts of Cardiff, with the use of a thing that bores many people in here, but I love it, and that's sustainable drainage systems. So, when you have those new developments, you're not discharging straight into the rivers, which could overload, you're actually slowing the water down. It is to do with the planting of the right tree in the right place as well. It's all of those things. And we need communities to be involved. Welsh Government has their role to play, with the funding that we are putting in. We also need the risk management authorities in those areas to step up and take forward that funding, and deliver the projects on the ground, some of which will be small, relevant to a small number of householders, to do with resilience and so on; some will be major, as they will be in Cardiff. Because we know, under the mapping, if we don't take the right action now to slow down the temperature rises that we're seeing, and the sea level rises, the mapping for Cardiff is not good. But we'll continue to invest in defending Cardiff, don't you worry.

Cabinet Secretary, as we have heard, flooding is becoming a more frequent occurrence in Cardiff, and the council has stated that the issue is caused in part by blocked drains, which they aim to rectify as quickly as possible, but also by the sewer system, which is unable to cope with the sheer amount of water that falls in our capital city. Worryingly, the situation is only going to get worse, as heavier rainfall continues to be predicted for this country. What conversations have you had, or what conversations have you and the Welsh Government had, with Welsh Water, to address this and increase the city's sewage capacity? Thank you.

Yes, this is a problem in Cardiff, but right across Wales as well, the load that we have on what was a fit-for-a-previous-century approach of having combined sewers and water discharge, where the load could be safely carried at that time, at that level of population, through that pipework. It is now antiquated and it's overloaded and, Joel, that's exactly why we are now at the forefront in Wales. In fact, we recently hosted a UK-wide event, in offices only 50 yards from here, that brought together SuDS engineers from across the UK. And I have to say, the plaudits that were given to Wales, for moving ahead rapidly within sustainable urban drainage systems—. And for those who don't know what these are, they're exactly to avoid the situation where all the discharge off roofs and the wider water system goes down the pipework directly, and then basically is beyond the capacity of that pipework. The idea here is that you use natural processes instead, and local authorities are engaging with this in Wales, to develop them into their town planning and the new streets, the new homes that they do, so that we're not discharging straight into the combined sewer network, but we're actually discharging into natural processes and slowing down the process of that into rivers. So, Joel, we'll keep on supporting local authorities, including Cardiff, to do that. And, in fact, Cardiff have got some brilliant schemes that, at that event, they took delegates around to show them what they were doing in new housing development.

Well, my office, my home and those of most of my constituents will be underwater unless we all change our ways. So, I wanted to ask you about the Greener Grangetown project, because here we've got a really good example of sustainable urban drainage, which has saved huge amounts of rain water going into the sewage system, saving money on energy, and obviously improving the environment. So, I want to explore not just why we don't have more Greener Grangetown-type systems across the city, where we do know that there's already flooding going on, as already referred to by Rhys ab Owen, but also how we are going to tap into the rain water system, and indeed where we wash our hands, to be used for flushing the toilet. Because it really is ridiculous that we're using drinking water for flushing the toilet, and then we don't even have enough rain water harvested to water the gardens, where drinking water is not the best option. So, we've really got to think quite differently in relation to reduce, reuse, recycle and how we're going to do that. Is it just money, or is it the lack of imagination and urgency going into this?

Jenny, thank you for that supplementary. Can I applaud, because I was talking about that SuDS conference and they went to see the Greener Grangetown initiative, and they were blown away by it, and thought, 'Well, how can we make this mainstream in England as well?' We need to do more of it in Wales. Now, it does mean a different way of thinking for engineers, who are traditionally thinking, 'Well, just plumb it into the pipelines. Just do a traditional hard engineering', but we now have a cadre of very well-informed SuDS engineers throughout Wales, with the support of Welsh Government, and they're in every local authority and starting to think very differently about it.

You rightly talk as well about the issue of what is sometimes referred to as, 'How do we use brown water systems?' I declare an interest here, Llywydd, as 15 years ago, when I built my house, we've got a submarine under the garden. It's a submarine-sized thing that harvests all the brown water. We flush our toilets with it; we make other uses of it. If we don't use the water butts in the garden to water the tomatoes, then we use the brown water system to do it and so on. But we somehow need to work across Government and local government to make this more normal and to innovate in that space, so that housing developments can do more of that as well. SuDS on one hand, rain water collection on another, which can be used for other purposes.

And the other simple thing is, Llywydd, frankly, saying to people, 'Don't waste water.' We've never had a proper value, if you like, on water, so people will fill the bath, they will use clean water that's been treated for a range of purposes that it doesn't need to be used for, and we need to get that message out there again. We have to do this constantly, to say to people, 'Value your water, because it isn't actually cheap or free. There is a cost in this, and some of those costs are actually to do with what we've been talking about here today, which is climate change.'

It's too early to have made a detailed assessment, but Welsh Ministers, with the Senedd's approval, will decide how to allocate the Welsh Government's budget to reflect our national priorities in Wales, including the £1.7 billion increase to our budget settlement, which will make a real difference to people in all our communities.

Minister, thank you for that answer. I recall the First Minister saying last week in First Minister's questions that the Welsh Government had done an analysis, but I think, in response to Llyr Gruffydd's question, you indicated that it was more of a general assessment that you'd taken from HM Revenue and Customs figures about the withdrawal of agricultural property relief. Is the Welsh Government minded to do a detailed piece of work that is specific to Welsh agriculture, so that we can get to fully understand the implications for the viability of Welsh agriculture that these proposals represent? Because if you take the Treasury's own figures, this will affect about 2,000 farms across the whole of the United Kingdom, and in a five-year parliamentary term, that's 10,000 farms. That is a big number of businesses that could be affected on a UK basis, but in a Welsh basis, we're talking several hundred, which would have a dramatic impact on the landscape and the productivity and viability of Welsh agriculture. So, is the Cabinet Secretary minded to undertake a piece of work that would support the assertion that the First Minister made in FMQs that a piece of work was under way?

Andrew, thank you for that follow-up question. I anticipated it would be about the wider budget in terms of Wales, but it's focused on inheritance tax and the agricultural property relief, which I'm happy to address again. In two other previous answers I've explained that the complexity of this means that to drill down to one individual figure is near impossible because of farm ownership structures; inheritance plans, or the absence thereof; the applicable reliefs that may be applied, or not; spouses, or not; gifting to children and so on, or not. The application of APR will vary enormously and so will the aspect of farm value as well. So, it's very difficult to get to a single point where you say, 'That is the impact.' So, as a result, as I've made clear, what we are relying on is the analysis that's been done by the Treasury, as I made clear in response to previous questions, but also some of the independent analysis that has come from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and others, which has also agreed with the Treasury analysis that the impact will not be on the scale that some are saying—it will be far less.

But let me just also point out here, on the budget, the difficulty of the current Chancellor of the Exchequer in filling the gap when walking into that office—and there's an impact here in Wales as well—and finding that what we thought had been committed financially had not been, and she then had to scrabble round to find ways of filling that. Well, farmers also, many of the farmers I know, will rely on good public services, they will rely on the NHS functioning well, and yet the last 14 years of deep cuts through the years after years of austerity, for which we've never had an apology in this Chamber—. It feels very much to me, Llywydd, like the arsonists who lit the match, stoked the fire, tried to burn the economy and public services, are now complaining about the damage, while warming their hands on the embers. Farmers and their families also want public services that are good, an NHS and public healthcare that is good, and all of these have been under sustained attack for a decade and more of Conservative Governments. So, underlying this is: to what extent are we all willing to contribute to the public wealth of this realm? And I think, and I say this confidently because of the conversations I've had, that farmers also recognise that they rely on these public services, they want to pay the due amount to make sure that we have good public services, and they look back on these 14 years as a constant attack from the people who tried to set fire to our economy.

We provide a wide range of direct and indirect support for farmers in Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire. Our grants for investment in on-farm improvements, equipment and technology, and the learning and development on offer from Farming Connect all demonstrate our commitment to supporting a sustainable future for Welsh agriculture.

Thank you, Deputy First Minister. One thing that went under the radar slightly at the budget was the fact that, unnecessarily and without need, the Chancellor decided to redefine agricultural funding for the devolved nations through the Barnett formula, which was completely unnecessary. Previously, I've asked you and your predecessor, with regard to the sustainable farming scheme, to write to the Treasury to ask for a quantifiable amount of money that would be needed to deliver the scheme in Wales. Using the Bank of England’s interest rate calculator, that would be approximately £500 million. Can you confirm on the floor of this Chamber if you or your predecessor ever did write to the Chancellor or the Treasury on that, and whether you have had correspondence with them asking them not to change, not to redefine agricultural payments through the Barnett formula?

Thank you, Sam, for that question, and just to point out that the discussions with the UK Treasury were, of course, led by my colleague, who was here a moment ago, the finance Secretary, but in discussion with myself and my officials as well. Despite welcoming the removal of the ring-fenced replacement EU agriculture funding, we've long argued, long argued, and maintain that position, that resources should be allocated across the UK on the basis of relative need, as set out in 'Reforming our Union'. That reform will need to be agreed by all four nations, and set within a new fiscal agreement, overseen and operated by a body independent of UK Government. This would be far more efficient, far more effective. It would help to reduce the distortions and inefficiencies arising in the current system. It would enable a more rational and transparent allocation of public spending across the UK. Our priority going forward is to ensure, however, that the current funding formula delivers for Wales, and we will continue to make that case. In response to a previous answer, Sam, I made clear our satisfaction that the future of the sustainable farming scheme for Wales would not be affected by any of the changes within the UK budget. We made that clear representation and I'm glad it's been heard.

Inheritance tax is a reserved tax controlled by the UK Government and it applies across the UK. HMT figures suggest that most farms will be unaffected by the changes announced by the UK Government.

Diolch yn fawr iawn. Just to follow through on some of the issues that have been raised this afternoon, it really is very interesting to hear you say that very few farms will be affected, because we do need those numbers, if that's your view. We need that backed up with evidence. I just want to say that while a £1 million threshold may seem substantial, Welsh family farms are often asset rich but cash poor. These families live modestly and work tirelessly on the same land, year after year, yet they are now facing an onslaught of financial pressures, two of which I learned about further in terms of the effect of the UK Government budget. From next April, work vehicles such as double-cab pick-up trucks, which our farmers depend on daily for transporting materials and equipment, will be reclassified for tax purposes. This change could see benefit-in-kind charges soar, with some farms facing an elevenfold increase annually. The introduction of the carbon border adjustment mechanism in 2027 will further add pressures on our farms. So, again, following through on some of the issues raised this afternoon, what assessment have you made of the impact on Welsh farms of these changes in the UK budget? Diolch yn fawr iawn.

Jane, thank you very much. I'm at risk of repeating myself, but I do want to be really clear on this. Whilst the concerns about the impact of the changes are understandable, and there are a lot of people—a lot of individual farmers and their families—now looking at, 'Does this apply to me? What does it mean?' and so on, and I would strongly advise them to look at it properly, to look at the detail that's on the HMT website, and then work through it as well, and see if it does apply, actually speculating on the precise number of affected farms is not either helpful or in fact possible to arrive at a figure, because of the complexity of the issues that I talked about before. So, on that basis, we revert to the published HMT data. But I would say very strongly, and in your discussion with farmers in your area, if farmers are able to put forward alternative analyses or alternative data, they need to put those arguments to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

I would also be interested in seeing that as well, but the complexity of this, because of the value of the farms, the inheritance plans that they may or may not have, the ownership structures of different farms, whether applicable reliefs apply or not—. All of those things and more make it very difficult to arrive at one figure when individual farm businesses will make individual farm business decisions. But genuinely, I'd advise everybody to look at what it actually says on the HM Treasury site. Take advice, including, if you have individual financial advisers, from them, but also Farming Connect. And then, if the farming unions or others have an alternative analysis, put that to HM Treasury and to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I'm willing to look at that as well, because what I do want to make sure is that we have the future viability, particularly as we're taking through the sustainable farming scheme. Hard work that that is, we are making good progress steadily, but I want to make sure that, with our focus there on small and medium-scale farms, long-term sustainability financially can be made to happen. So, I hope that helps in some way, but trying to narrow it down into one figure is going to be nigh impossible.

And finally, question 8, Heledd Fychan.

First of all, my heartfelt sympathies go out to all those affected by the recent flooding in Europe, particularly in Spain. The Welsh Government is taking steps to build more resilient communities as we combat the threat of climate change, and that's why this Government has now invested £60 million in South Wales Central since 2021, benefiting 2,800 properties.

Thank you for your response, Deputy First Minister. You will be aware from our recent visits to Clydach Terrace in Ynysybwl of the devastating impact of the 2020 floods. Luckily, no lives were lost, but we know that, in 2020, areas such as South Wales Central suffered three and a half to four months' worth of rain due to that storm. You only have to look at what happened in Spain to see a year's worth of rainfall in such a short space of time. Can I therefore ask what lessons you're taking from what's happening elsewhere to understand the potential impact here on communities in Wales, and also the assurances we can provide communities that were already devastated and concerned after 2020 but are watching the news now, knowing that they are at risk and their lives are at risk if a similar situation to storm Dennis happens, but are left asking, 'What if it's worse next time?'?

Thank you for that supplementary question and for the advocacy that you and Vikki and others have been doing on behalf of the residents. I think that's been very important. And thanks for the opportunity to meet with residents of Clydach Terrace as well, to try and explore ways forward for them, but also, you are right, to ask what have we learnt.

What we've learnt is this: way back into 2008 when the Cumbrian floods happened, when there was utter devastation through many of the towns of Cumbria, when it changed landscapes, it rerouted rivers, the power of that, what we saw then with the help of the Met Office was one of the early examples of not simply traumatic weather, but where that weather front moved over and stopped on top of a community. If you look now at what's happened tragically in Spain, it's a similar situation; in other parts of Europe, the same thing.

We had a presentation this week as part of the climate conversations from somebody senior in the Met Office who showed exactly that: what's changed is these fronts are holding over communities in almost an eddy above them, and then deluging those communities. That is important to note. Things are changing. It's not just the increased amount of water that is being dumped with climate change; it's that they're stopping in some places on top of communities. So, we do need to think creatively and we do need to think differently.

My thoughts are with those in Clydach Terrace and also many other communities, because what we're also finding now is communities who never thought they would be flooded are being flooded. Communities on tops of hills are being flooded in flash flooding. So, we need to anticipate this and prepare for this in the way that we go forward.

Can I just say, as well, thanks for the representations you and Vikki made in terms of the National Flood Forum? I heard at that meeting how important they are. I believe you may have had my letter now confirming that we've extended the funding to the National Flood Forum to work with the residents of Clydach Terrace for the remainder of this financial year. I think that will give some reassurance to them as well, because I know how useful the NFF have been in working with them.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary. 

The next item will be topical questions. There are two questions that have been agreed today. The first is from Peredur Owen Griffiths.

We sympathise with all those affected by the fire. We're engaged with policing and community safety partners on any broader issues impacting on the community relating to the incident. In response to the damage and disruption caused to businesses by the fire, Business Wales can provide post-fire recovery business support.

Thank you for that answer.

The fire that broke out in Abergavenny over the weekend has devastated a historic part of the town centre. I'd like to pay tribute to the emergency service response that ensured the safety of local residents and battled bravely to contain the blaze as much as possible. Once an investigation into the cause has been completed, attentions will turn to rebuilding the livelihoods of those affected. I'm also concerned at the impact the fire has had on the charity The Magic Cottage, which supports children and young people under the age of 25 with additional needs and chronic and life-limiting illnesses. They work across four counties—Monmouthshire, Blaenau Gwent, Torfaen and Powys. They've told the media that they lost absolutely everything in the fire, but, as a testament to the generosity of the public, The Magic Cottage has been inundated with more stock since the fire. They're now looking for new premises to store this stock. As an idea of scale, the shop in Abergavenny was about 10,000 sq ft of retail space, which is probably the biggest charity shop in Wales. So, Cabinet Secretary, what expertise, guidance and financial support can this Government provide to all those affected by the fire in Abergavenny, and what help can you provide to ensure that the disruption is kept to a minimum and that lives, businesses and the town centre and the work of this very important charity can get back on track as soon as possible? Diolch.

I'd very much like to associate myself with the comments from Peredur Owen Griffiths in relation to commending the work of South Wales Fire and Rescue Service, and, of course, the other emergency services and agencies, for their very swift and effective response. In relation to the support that can be provided, the Development Bank of Wales is available to support businesses that have been impacted and who may be able to benefit from the Wales micro loan fund that offers fast-tracked loans between £1,000 and £50,000. So, I would encourage any business in the first instance to make contact with the Business Wales helpline. They'll be able to provide some practical information and advice, or they could signpost on to relevant agencies and organisations who might be able to provide support.

They could also provide some signposting to a specific Business Wales adviser, who can help with some more detailed recovery plans as well. Those might include cash flow, liquidity and effects from disrupted trading. They might also be able to help them find alternative business space as well. That might be offices or warehouses, for example, to help the businesses continue trading and recover from the fire damage too. So, as I say, in the first instance, the calls should be to Business Wales, who can talk about the recovery support that's available.

Cabinet Secretary, like so many others around this Chamber, I was left devastated by the truly awful scenes that we saw unfold in Abergavenny on Sunday night. Understandably, the community has been left in complete shock, with homes lost, businesses destroyed and, obviously, as my colleague Peredur Owen Griffiths said earlier, the Magic Cottage children's charity losing absolutely everything.

Presiding Officer, I'm incredibly grateful and thankful that there were no casualties, and I want to take this opportunity to thank the 100 plus firefighters who tackled the flames, and each and every single person who's played a part in supporting those affected. Abergavenny naturally has an incredible community spirit, and it's been a heartwarming exercise to see locals rally around and do what they can to help, including launching online fundraising efforts left, right and centre.

Cabinet Secretary, I do appreciate your previous answers to my colleague setting out the Welsh Government's position, because I believe we all do sincerely have an opportunity to help. So, I'd like to know what conversations Ministers, particularly yourself, have had with Monmouthshire County Council to ensure that they are in the best possible position to provide help and support. As you mentioned previously in your answer, there are various groups and organisations, but it is also imperative that we support businesses, especially in the run-up to Christmas. So, will the Government work with the key stakeholders, even the ones that you mentioned in your previous answer, to see what can be done to help those individuals and businesses truly bounce back? Thank you.

I'm very grateful for the question, and, again, for that recognition of the bravery of those responders who were at the scene, but also the generosity of spirit of the community, which has absolutely rallied around, as well, which is absolutely wonderful. The question specifically laid was in relation to business support, so, as I said, the key point of contact would be through Business Wales to explore with a Business Wales adviser what kind of plan can be put in place in terms of recovery from the incident. But in terms of those wider conversations, those would be led by other colleagues who have the responsibility for local government and also the fire and rescue service. But I just want to reassure colleagues that, as I said in my initial answer to the question, we are engaged with policing and community safety partners on those broader impacts in relation to the wider community.

Laura Anne Jones.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Cabinet Secretary, the recent fire in Abergavenny, as has already been said by my colleagues—and I concur with all the comments that have been made—had a devastating impact on the local community and local businesses there, including Cable News, a cherished establishment run by Paul Cable for over 30 years now, and the Magic Cottage charity shop, whose owners have worked tirelessly to support young people in need. So, I concur with the comments that have just been made and thank you for outlining what support you think can be available to them and others in rebuilding, and particularly in supporting those vulnerable groups in our community. As I'm sure you'll agree, this is of the utmost importance. And do you agree with me that one thing that we could do now is really work hard together, collectively, to ensure that people visit Abergavenny in the run-up to Christmas and support our local businesses?

Absolutely I would encourage people to visit Abergavenny in the run-up to Christmas, but actually all year round, because it is an absolutely beautiful place to visit—so many independent shops that you just wouldn't be able to find elsewhere. And it's absolutely somewhere that we would encourage people to visit for all kinds of reasons, but especially so now to experience some of that wonderful community spirit that your colleague Natasha mentioned in her contribution.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary. The next topical question is to be answered by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Services and to be asked by Mabon ap Gwynfor.

The 50-day winter challenge identifies 10 best-practice initiatives to help people to stay well at home and leave hospital once clinical needs are met. It challenges both health and social care partners to target support on the 25 per cent of those patients with delayed discharges, putting plans in place to support them to return home.

I welcome the fact that the Government has belatedly recognised the need for a fresh approach to the long-standing problem of delayed hospital discharges, but I do worry that the substance of the plan leaves a lot to be desired. Firstly, it’s clear that it will largely be underpinned by existing rather than new resources. The regional integration fund, for example, was put in place back in April 2022, with the specific aim of better integrating health and social care. So, this begs the question: if it hasn’t been effective over the past two years, why should we expect different results now?

Secondly, it’s difficult to see where this fits in with Labour Government’s propensity for short-term sticking-plaster solutions, at the expense of a coherent overarching vision for transforming the NHS. It’s worth referencing the NHS Confederation's verdict in this respect: 

'Unless the broader challenges of demand and capacity across the whole health and care system are addressed, a 50-day challenge and action plan won’t be enough to achieve a sustainable health and care system in the long term.'

I share the NHS Confederation’s understandable scepticism at the potential of this plan to deliver in isolation. Does the Cabinet Secretary agree with the NHS Confederation’s analysis?

Finally, as we’ve mentioned so often in relation to Welsh Government plans, there is a conspicuous absence of targets. So, I’d like to finish with a very simple question to the Cabinet Secretary: in September 2024, the latest reporting date, there were 1,596 delayed hospital discharges across Wales; what figure does he expect to see at the end of the 50-day challenge period?

I thank the Member for those questions. Perhaps I might suggest that the point at which to assess the success of this initiative is after it's completed rather than before it starts. But on the point that he puts specifically to me, this is an example of the approach that I've been advocating, as he knows, since I took on these responsibilities, which is to identify rapidly within the health and social care system those interventions that many parts of the system are already undertaking and that have had demonstrable success and making sure that those are identified and rapidly spread through the system. So, this is an example of that happening in action. Of the 10 things on the action list, most of them are already being taken forward in some parts of Wales. The challenge now is for services to be reconfigured so that all parts of Wales offer as many of those as possible.

He makes an important point about resourcing. In the discussions that we've had with both health board and local authority partners, there's been a recognition that the regional integration fund, together with the Further Faster fund and others, are in the system and are capable of being deployed to support some of these initiatives. Many of them are actually cost neutral and others involve the reallocation of existing resource. What is new here, I think, is the recognition of most effective interventions and the readiness to reconfigure services to reflect those in all health board areas. And I think that's been a challenge that partners have taken up with real commitment, actually, over the course of the last number of weeks. I'm afraid I didn't hear what the NHS Confederation had to say, but what I do know is that we work directly with their members, who are actually involved in delivering on the ground. And I'm grateful to them all, because they have engaged very constructively with us in relation to this work.

The Member I think was in the Chamber yesterday when the point was put to the First Minister about the target. Of course, she answered as I did in my initial question, that the support is aimed at 25 per cent of the longest waiters, and so that's roughly 350 people. So, this challenge is about putting new ways of working in place and targeting support on that 25 per cent, and making sure that as many as possible of those can be returned home. But, critically, the point here is to make sure that that success is sustained. It's important for those individuals to go home, but, actually, what we want to make sure is that delays come down across the system. And so actually making sure that that is sustained is important, so we are having conversations with partners during these 50 days about what resources might be required to make the intervention sustainable in the longer term. And that will be looked at in light of the experience over the coming weeks.

I'm grateful to Mabon ap Gwynfor for bringing this question to the Senedd here today. I'm grateful, Cabinet Secretary, for your response to Mabon ap Gwynfor just now as well. Also, I just wanted to put on record again my gratitude to those health and care workers who are now going to face the winter pressures and the challenges that face them. And we all know in this Chamber that they are doing their best, and want to do their best, to ensure that people are discharged at the most appropriate time, and, hopefully, for more people, that will be faster than it has been over recent years.

I heard your comments in terms of the elements within the 10-point plan, and I understand, Cabinet Secretary, that the desire here is to seek some consistency, not necessarily to reinvent the wheel across Wales. But I wonder if you could comment on which of those 10 points you think will make the biggest difference to this 50-day target that you've set. I think that would be helpful for us to understand the elements within that 10-point plan, and which would make the biggest difference. I'm also interested to understand where this 50-days number has come from, and whether you knocked around some other numbers as to which might be the most effective target to aim for—whether it's clinical evidence or the evidence you have to ensure that that 50-day target is something that is either achievable or realistic for health boards working with social care services to reach.

I agreed with Mabon ap Gwynfor's point around the risks of this being seen as a short-term moment. And, actually, what we do need to see, of course—and I think you would agree with this—is a longer term plan, to ensure that people aren't in hospital longer than they need to be. So, I'm interested to know, at the end of this target challenge that you've put in place—I think it runs up to the end of the year, which is what's been described—how those health boards, local authorities and others will be held accountable and supported to ensure that these discharges happen in a timely manner.

And my final question—sorry, Llywydd—is just understanding your expectation around the impact on waiting lists more broadly. Because of course this will, and should, create more capacity in our hospitals, to ensure that people are treated who are on existing waiting lists. I'm wondering, in your analysis, how you expect waiting lists to be reduced as a result of this 50-day challenge. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

I thank Sam Rowlands for those questions. I think each of the 10 steps plays a different role, actually, in supporting the system overall. So, some are, if you like, hospital-based interventions. So, the integrated discharge service that the Minister for social care and I saw in action in Cardiff last week, but also works in other parts of Wales, is really about how existing resources can be co-located in a hospital setting, to make sure that the patient's journey, really, ideally, from the moment at which they cross the threshold or are admitted, is increasingly understood and responded to. So, there are some hospital-located interventions, if you like, and there are others in the plan, as he will have seen, which are really about making sure that, for example, we make greater use of care home and community beds for continuing healthcare assessments. Those don't have to then happen in a hospital setting. So, some of it is about the location in which the intervention takes place, but some of it is about, if you like, the underpinning support in the system for this range of interventions. So, a focus on reablement is critical in order for that to succeed. Whichever the interventions you put in place, they will all basically benefit from enhanced reablement. So, I think it's probably not that scientific to rank them; I think they play a different role in that sense.

Why 50 days? Well, we know that the period at which the NHS and care is under the most intense pressure is during the winter, and so it's 50 days between now and the end of the year, and typically we see the most intense pressures at the start of the new year. So, the period, if you like, is dictated by the timescale available. We've tried to project how many individuals we think it is reasonable to try and support within that context.

But the Member's last question, I think, in a way, is the most important. Critically, as I was saying to Mabon ap Gwynfor, what we want to see—. It's not a 50-day job-done approach, it's a 50-day period to put these provisions in place. And doing that successfully is what gives us the best chance of making sure that the benefits, both for individual patients and for the system, are sustained, which is obviously what we want to see. So, the 50-day period is, if you like, a period of intense working to put the new arrangements in place and help as many of that 25 per cent cohort as possible. But the success of this will be judged by whether that progress is maintained into the medium and longer term beyond that.

I'd like to ask you a specific question about my region, please, Cabinet Secretary. You may be aware that there is consultation in Rhondda Cynon Taf council at the moment about the potential closure of two care homes, Ferndale House and Cae Glas. I've had staff working at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital contact me concerned because there is a freeze on admissions to care homes whilst this consultation goes ahead, meaning that, because they're uncertain of the future of those, there are people who should be going to residential care homes that are currently in hospital beds. So, can I ask what discussions are taking place with local authorities in light of this announcement to ensure that consultations that are currently being held actually are reflecting the budgetary situation that we now know and won't actually worsen the situation? I spoke directly with residents in Ferndale House. They are fit and well, but not well enough to live at home. Many told me, directly themselves, that they feel that they wouldn't be alive now if they weren't in a care home. They'd tried being at home unsuccessfully and unfortunately that's not sustainable for them, and they're really concerned that a move from that home will kill them, that their only option will be to bedblock in a hospital, because there won't be care packages; they've had to sell their homes as well, there are no homes for them to return to. So, what conversations are you having with local authorities around this freeze now in taking cases and how that's going to be reflected in this 50-day challenge? 

I don't know the circumstances of the individual residents, naturally, as the Member would not expect me to, and I don't know where the consultations are in relation to the particular care homes, but what I can tell the Member is that Rhondda Cynon Taf council, as all councils, have been very, very fully engaged in the development and taking forward of these plans. The Minister for social care and I have met with each of the health board regions and the local authorities in partnership to discuss both their plans generally, but specifically in relation to the 50-day challenge, and part of the discussion has been around the availability and the capacity in the care home sector in each of those regions, so just to give the Member reassurance. There will obviously be, in different parts of Wales, a different underlying level of capacity and choices and decisions that are being made in the way that she describes examples in her own region. But just to give her the reassurance, all the data in relation to the availability of care home places is taken fully into account in the discussions that we've been having with our partners. 

I thank the Cabinet Secretary.  

Item 4 today is the 90-second statements, and the first is from Llyr Gruffydd. 

Thank you very much, Dirprwy Lywydd. I want to use this opportunity to congratulate the young farmers of Wales clubs on their success in the young farmers’ eisteddfod, held in Carmarthen last week. A number of competitors came out on top, including some from my region in North Wales, in areas as diverse as the vocal ensemble, where Rhosybol Club in Anglesey took first prize, Hawys Grug from Clwyd won the youth solo, and Mared Edwards from Anglesey won the humorous recital competition.

Many congratulations also to Mared Fflur Jones from Anglesey, who won the chair, and to Elain Iorwerth, a Bangor University student, who won the crown. The resounding success of the eisteddfod again this year is a testament to the essential role that the organisation plays as a backbone of Welsh culture and the Welsh language.

Also, beyond Wales, success was enjoyed by the young farmers in the young farmers clubs British community awards held in Birmingham recently. One of the stars of the Uwchaled Young Farmers Club, Ceridwen Edwards, came top in the 'Heart of the YFC' category, where the judges were delighted with her energy and her tireless work for the club.

Another big winner that evening was Llangwyryfon Young Farmers Club in Ceredigion, which won the 'Community Spirit Award of the National Federation of Young Farmers Clubs', with praise given for the club's role in rescuing the local village hall, and their contribution to the viabilty of the Welsh language.

Young farmers clubs across Wales have 5,500 members, contributing more than a million voluntary work hours every year. So, let us celebrate all of these successes, and the invaluable contribution of the movement to communities across the country.

I have 90 seconds to mark the ninetieth anniversary since the miners' welfare hall was opened in Ystradgynlais. This wonderful hall was built from the miners’ pennies and cost them at the time £9,000. The opening ceremony was followed by a week of celebrations, including a grand production of 'The Bells of Beaulieu' by the Ystradgynlais Juvenile Operatic Society, produced by Mr Cynlais Davies.

Since 1934, the hall has gone through various transformations, and, today, is a vibrant arts centre and community hub. Sometimes, it’s also a radio station, sometimes it’s a tv studio. It has a cinema, showing all the latest films, and it hosts events like—wait for it—an Abba live tribute band, and has a variety of workshops and activities. It also boasts the Josef Herman Art Foundation Cymru, which is dedicated to promoting an appreciation of the life and work of Josef Herman, who has exhibited at the Tate Britain.

Indeed, the welfare hall is proud of the fact that it is one of the few welfare halls throughout the whole of the country that has retained its original purpose of being a place of culture and education. This hall is by and for the whole community of Ystradgynlais. Diolch to all of the staff and volunteers who have been there over the past 90 years, and we wish them well for the next 90 years. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

Eitem 5 heddiw yw’r ddadl ar adroddiad y Pwyllgor Plant, Pobl Ifanc ac Addysg, 'A yw plant a phobl ifanc anabl yn cael mynediad cyfartal at addysg a gofal plant?' A galwaf ar Gadeirydd y pwyllgor i wneud y cynnig—Buffy Williams.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. In spring 2023, the Children, Young People and Education Committee launched one of our most ambitious inquiries to date: a detailed exploration of the childcare and education experiences of disabled and neurodivergent children and their families. Our work covered early years and pre-school provision, including funding, staffing, and sufficiency. It covered breakfast clubs, after-school clubs and holiday provision.

We looked in detail at the school day itself—special schools, mainstream schools, extra-curricular activities and school buildings. We explored school funding, staffing arrangements, capacity, training, Welsh-medium provision and more. We also explored the impacts of inequitable provision on children and their families, whether families have the information they need, and whether they are listened to.

Over the course of our inquiry, we held 13 oral evidence sessions. We received over 80 separate pieces of written evidence, many of them directly from families. We visited five schools and three childcare and support settings. We bolstered our written evidence via correspondence with a range of different bodies.

Alongside this, the citizen engagement team held over 40 family interviews with parents, carers and children, and also young people from across Wales, on our behalf.

We established an online advisory group with over 15 parents, carers and young people. Their extensive personal experiences shaped and informed our work.

All this evidence and more fed into our report. It was a robust, comprehensive and thorough inquiry, and at the very heart were the very distressing personal experiences of many families, evidence that has certainly left an imprint on me, and I suspect on the other members of the committee, both past and present, who were involved in this inquiry.

I say all this to reinforce the weight of evidence that we received that underpins our findings, because we do not come to conclusions like those in this report lightly. We conclude in our report that a significant number of children and young people’s rights to an education are being currently breached in Wales. These children and young people are being fundamentally let down.

We conclude that denying children and young people their right to an education can have significant impacts on their emotional and mental well-being, as well as their physical health. It’s not just the child who has to live with these impacts, but also parents, carers, siblings, grandparents and other members of the family and wider community. Again, these impacts can be significant and lifelong.

Our report made 32 recommendations. There is not enough time to discuss them all today, so I will focus on the priorities of our online advisory group. As a committee, we have committed to doing what we can to listen to people with first-hand experience of the issues we are exploring, so it is fitting that people with lived experience shape the debate on this report. They are the experts on what actually happens in Wales, no matter what guidance documents, policy statements, or even what our laws say. So, what did they think of the Welsh Government’s response to our report? Here is a representative view from one member of the group:

‘I do not think the response acknowledges the size and seriousness of the issues for families, or that the issues are urgent. I do not see recognition of the difficulties that families are facing in the response, let alone the work required to address them.’

They have asked us to focus on some specific issues in today’s debate. Cabinet Secretary, I hope that you are able to respond to these concerns specifically in your response. While I acknowledge some of these issues extend beyond your education portfolio, as the Welsh Government representative responding to today’s debate, I would be grateful if you would speak on behalf of the Government on all issues today.

First, the lack of childcare provision for disabled and neurodivergent children. In the response to recommendation 4, the Welsh Government states that childcare provision is largely operated by private individuals or businesses, so local authorities are limited in what they can do to secure inclusive childcare for disabled and neurodivergent children. But there’s a major problem with this argument, as one member of our advisory group so clearly outlined:

‘The market has failed to provide a childcare service to families and there seem to be no policy proposals to address it.’

Cabinet Secretary, are the Welsh Government resigned to there being a substantial shortfall of sustainable, inclusive childcare, as the response suggests? Does the Welsh Government have a plan or intentions to develop a plan to increase inclusive childcare capacity?

Second, our recommendation 15, which calls for the Welsh Government to identify the most common conditions affecting disabled and neurodivergent children, and develop and roll out support for schools to help them respond to those conditions. The Welsh Government has rejected this recommendation, arguing that work is already under way in this area with the implementation of the Curriculum for Wales, but, as we all know, there is an important difference between curriculum content and curriculum delivery. It’s so important we focus our debate on how schools can deliver their curricula to disabled and neurodivergent learners, not how the curriculum enables schools to develop their own curriculum. As one of our advisory group members told us:

'Without understanding the differences in how those children learn, however much there is this new concept of a new curriculum, you're still delivering it in the same manner.'

We wholeheartedly agree. Cabinet Secretary, can you explain to us more clearly how you believe the Curriculum for Wales will help schools to understand and meet the needs of their disabled and neurodivergent learners?

Next, our recommendation 19. We called for the Welsh Government to commission the development of a mandatory training module for all school staff on disability awareness. You rejected this recommendation, arguing that voluntary engagement in professional learning is more effective than mandatory training. However, your response also acknowledges that the Welsh Government can and does promote professional learning in priority areas. Presumably, this means you could promote disability awareness training too, if you felt it was a priority. Cabinet Secretary, is disability awareness training for education staff a priority for the Welsh Government?

Finally, in a number of places the Welsh Government’s response appears to delegate responsibility for equity in childcare and education to local authorities. Here are a few examples. Recommendations 4, 10 and 32: these recommendations focused on gaps in childcare, local authority and school accessibility strategies and plans, and gaps in specialist teaching posts. Each of these were rejected, with responsibility thrown back to the local authorities. But, as our report so clearly sets out, local authorities are struggling to consistently provide equal access to childcare and education. Despite best efforts, using the finances, staff and resources available to them across Wales as a whole, local authorities are not providing equal access to childcare and education. What more will it take for the Welsh Government to step in to give local authorities the support they so clearly need, as outlined in our recommendations?

Cabinet Secretary, we welcome the acknowledgement in your response to our report that more must be done to ensure that children’s rights to an education are being upheld consistently across Wales. But we do not feel that your response commits to a step change in the pace and scale of the action required to do so. Our committee, like the online advisory group, worry that maybe you are not giving these issues the priority they deserve. Just this morning, I visited Ysgol Gyfun Cwm Rhondda to see their new ALN provision. There's absolutely no denying that education staff, like their childcare counterparts, are doing the best with what they've got. Committee members, as am I, are convinced that our education and childcare staff couldn't be doing any more. But I'm not convinced that the Welsh Government appreciates just how much work needs to be done to improve access to childcare and education for disabled and neurodivergent children, and I'm not convinced that this Welsh Government has demonstrated that it understands the urgency that the work requires.

I look forward to hearing your views and the views of Members across the Chamber over the course of today’s debate.

I'm pleased to be discussing some of the really important findings in this committee report this afternoon, and I'm keen to hear the Welsh Government's response to the report's conclusions, as the Chair of the CYPE Committee has already highlighted in her opening of the debate.

To begin with childcare, the report found that inclusive and accessible childcare provision is patchy, variable and, in some places, non-existent, and this immediately sets some children at a disadvantage from the earliest age. Childcare provision for all children is increasingly expensive, and places are sparse. So, for patients—parents, I should say, sorry—of neurodiverse children, places are even harder to find. The children's commissioner said that there is very little specialised early years provision and that the gap is widely acknowledged. The complexities of children's needs are increasing and, on an anecdotal basis, I visit many nurseries in my constituency in my capacity as shadow Minister for early years, and I always hear from nursery owners that children are presenting with more complex learning and behavioural issues that they are rarely equipped to deal with and that there is a lack of diagnostic support for children of that age.

This was also echoed in the report, which outlines that the committee heard from both families and stakeholders that securing inclusive childcare can be complicated, because needs are only just beginning to emerge, and it may only be once a child is in childcare that it becomes clear, and families then have to deal with waiting times for assessment. So, it's important that the Welsh Government lays out how it plans to remain responsive to changing trends in neurodiversity in Wales, and ensure that there is recognition that neurodivergent children need support.

Similarly to childcare provision, the report highlighted that, throughout Wales, inclusive provision is patchy and inconsistent; schools struggle with sufficient funding, staffing and expertise to deliver inclusive education. Of course, under the Equality Act 2010, schools are required to make reasonable adjustments for disabled pupils and the Welsh Government published statutory guidance back in 2018, with an aim to improve access to education.

The Children's Commissioner for Wales said that they are aware that the statutory requirement for schools to consult with children and young people on accessibility plans does not always happen, with Whizz Kids also highlighting that they are not routinely consulted. It's important, also, that the accessibility strategies and plans are evaluated and revised on a rolling three-year basis, and consider all aspects of education. Children themselves must be consulted and the rolling revision will ensure that strategies remain responsive to changing trends. So, I'm keen to know what the Welsh Government is doing to ensure that statutory guidance is being followed, as, so often, people are told what they want to hear; the guidance is published and the results are never seen. There is no delivery or resources put into the delivery and implementation of the new guidance, therefore, it's essential that accessibility strategies are constantly revised, with consultation of children and young people and that the decision-making structures that allocate the resources are fully in sync with the requirements of pupils.

Given that it's Anti-Bullying Week, I would also like to draw attention to some of the barriers to education that disabled pupils face as a result of bullying, and the importance of pupil well-being. Shockingly, according to the Ambitions for Wales survey of over 10,000 children, young people and parents, just under 60 per cent of young people aged between 12 and 18 who identified as disabled report having experienced bullying. Professionals also identified disabled young people as being at the most risk of bullying, with over 17 per cent of disabled young people reporting that they never felt safe at school. This, of course, compounds the issue of educational accessibility, it exacerbates social isolation and results in poorer educational attainment.

We should accept that having a disability necessitates poorer educational outcomes and that every child deserves equal access to good-quality education, and it is important to recognise that the barriers are not always financial. The NASUWT—I'll put my teeth back in—told the committee that, sometimes, incidents are not labelled as bullying and therefore bullying strategies don't kick in. So, it's clear from the statistics that disabled pupils disproportionately experience bullying in schools and that better safeguards need to be implemented to identify the bullying sooner.

I'd like to know how the Welsh Government intends to ensure that guidance is being followed by schools, that disability strategies are frequently revised with routine consultation of children, and how the Welsh Government intends to improve safeguarding against bullying for disabled children and recognise the important role that mental well-being plays in the discussion surrounding barriers to a successful education. Thank you very much.

It is an honour to take part in this debate; it was an honour to be part of the committee whilst this inquiry was taking place. I'd like to pay tribute to the clerking team. I'd also like to pay tribute to all my fellow members of the committee, as well as everybody who engaged in this really important inquiry. It was moving. It was heartbreaking. It was uplifting, at times, to see some of the fantastic examples when children are properly supported and when their families are properly supported, how they thrive, how happy they are, how they go on to do brilliant things. But we have to acknowledge, when those failings are in place, how devastating those impacts can be.

I know that the clerking team, all Members, as well as those who gave of their time to this inquiry, didn't take the recommendations lightly. Honestly, we did try to make fewer recommendations; we did try to have a shorter report than this one. But the amount of evidence that we received meant that we had to include those important contributions and voices, and you only need to see, in terms of how many references there are, that we had so many written submissions as well. The visits really enriched our understanding. And when you think of some of the families, they gave of their time when they are struggling, and they gave of their time not just once, but on numerous occasions, to help advise us. My concern is what happens next, because when people give of their time so meaningfully and so honestly, they expect it to lead to change.

All of us know of the difficulties facing local authorities, the education sector and the Welsh Government, but we were told last week that austerity is over and that things are going to improve now. Obviously, there was some good news in the budget, but we need to acknowledge the scale of the issues, and I'm glad that the Chair did highlight some of those key challenges, because it is difficult to understand why some of the recommendations have been rejected by the Welsh Government. I would, again, urge, as the Chair of the committee did, in terms of recommendation 19, in terms of mandatory training—I would like to understand the Welsh Government's position on this and ask you to reconsider.

I, myself, because of the scale of casework that I receive as a regional Member relating to disabled children and young people, and their access, or not getting access, to education and childcare, decided to conduct a survey, which I then submitted as part of this work as information. The casework is still increasing, so even though we've done this work and engaged, the issues are still out there.

I also want to really highlight the problem that I think that we are going to see of those who have been traumatised by an education system that hasn't worked for them to date and have been lost from the education system, maybe at five years old or at six years old. They're currently—well, they're categorised as being home educated. They're not home educated; they've been failed by an education system and there is no support, because it's seen as a choice by parents. It's not a choice when schools have not been able to support their child, and if they've been traumatised by school. So, what is that ongoing support going to be for them whilst we are, hopefully, making sure that any child who enters the education system from now on will be properly supported and won't be traumatised by education? What about those children who have been traumatised because they haven't received the support they require?

Also, in terms of families, women are disproportionately impacted by the failings that are outlined in this report from not being able to work, and the impact, then, on the Welsh economy is profound. The lack of availability of childcare was something that I was really disappointed that some of the local authority representatives who spoke to us as a committee did not even acknowledge was a problem. You would have thought, hearing from them, that there was no issue here. Unless we acknowledge that there is an issue, we cannot put things right. So, I would urge the Cabinet Secretary, in her response, to focus on how we get that acknowledgement and true picture of what's happening on the ground, so that we can put that right, because if we do have very senior people in local authorities saying, 'There's not a problem', and we have people in tears telling us that they're suicidal because of the failings, something's not right and doesn't sit right with me.

Thank you for the committee's work. I'd like to hear from the Chair, in your closing remarks, how you're taking this work forward. I'm no longer on the committee. It's really important that we don't just listen, but act. We owe it to those who have given of their time to make sure that the changes outlined in this report and in these recommendations are implemented.

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to the debate as Chair of the Petitions Committee. The committee wanted me to highlight some important petitions that we have recently considered, where the evidence from petitioners has helped to inform this inquiry. This includes five petitions relating to additional learning needs support and provision, and the reforms to the ALN code. We debated these issues on 8 May, and considered the petitions again at our meeting on 14 October. The details have been shared with the Cabinet Secretary. The sheer number of petitions and signatures highlights the strength of feeling that there is. Some of the petitioners have been able to engage with the committee, and the Cabinet Secretary and her officials, and that is, of course, very welcome.

Just last week, we met a petitioner supported by the National Deaf Children's Society. He was calling for more teachers of the deaf, and support for deaf children and their families and teachers. The petitioner is an experienced educator and parent to two deaf children, and she told us she was devastated at the Government’s rejection of recommendation 32 of this report. Recommendation 32 calls for the Welsh Government to set out a clear delivery plan for addressing gaps in specialist teaching posts for teachers of the deaf and teachers of the visually impaired, to ensure that all children and young people can access this support when needed. This delivery plan should have clear targets, deliverables and time frames, so it can be monitored and scrutinised. I promised the petitioner that I would raise it today. We ask the Cabinet Secretary for Education to look again at this recommendation, and we will also be writing to her soon with more detail on what the petitioners see as the way forward, having met with them last week. I note that the petition also has the full support of the Senedd’s cross-party group on deaf issues.

Our recent debate in the Chamber on access to cash for vulnerable adults also highlights how much work is still needed to guarantee that disabled people have the same rights of access as everyone else. We have made much progress, but the danger of regressing is real.

Bus transport and learner travel is another area of concern for petitioners. At our meeting on 4 November, we had updates on four petitions relating to transport for school children and bus transport more generally. The CYPE report contains three recommendations on learner travel: recommendations 21, 22 and 23, which are ensuring best practice, updating guidance and training for transport providers to provide better support for young people. There is a lot of work planned in this area, but the committee was keen that I highlight today how important these issues are, as set out in the Petitions Committee's 'Freedom to thrive: Free and accessible public transport for young people' report, which we debated in October.

Thank you for the opportunity to highlight these petitions as part of today’s debate. I just personally would like to say in the minute that’s left that I do understand, as previously I worked in local authorities, that we have had cuts to local authority budgets, there is increasing demand, that we need to look at the Learner Travel (Wales) Measure 2008, and I know that the cost of delivering transport for children has increased by 40 per cent. So, I do understand the backdrop of austerity that we have been facing, but I wanted to make sure that these points, on behalf of the Petitions Committee, were raised today. Thank you.

As a previous committee member myself, may I also start by thanking the clerk, all committee staff and all Members who have served on the committee, and have gone through all of this review, and, of course, our fantastic Chair, Buffy Williams, and former Chair, Jayne Bryant, who have been totally committed and invested in doing a thorough review of this? It was an honour to be a part and be instrumental in bringing this to the committee’s attention initially, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for doing a proper job on this. I just really hope that the Government will now listen to these, and perhaps revisit some of these recommendations that we’ve made as a committee—the current committee.

Support for children with additional learning needs is one of the most pressing issues affecting families in Wales today, and being part of this review, as has already been said, has been heartbreaking and enlightening. Despite years of calls for reform, the Welsh Government continues to fail these children and their families, leaving them to struggle without the necessary support or resources.

School staff are doing the best that they can with what they have, as has already been said by our Chair. It is disgraceful that so many teachers and teaching assistants still lack the basic standardised training on neurodiversity, let alone for specialised cases, like Angelman syndrome, which can often present themselves. This presents multiple problems, one being that, without being fully prepared to look after and be aware of the specific needs and behaviours that ALN learners could present, and without having an understanding of how to deal with them, these behaviours can often be wrongly diagnosed as bad behaviour.

A constituent only yesterday presented me with a case in a comprehensive school where the child was excluded because they shout out the answers in the classroom. His behaviour was seen as bad behaviour, but the child himself goes home crying every night because he's unable to stop himself doing so. And this is exactly the lower level ALN that's regrettably falling under the radar with this new—and don't get me wrong, very welcome—ALN Act. It is something that needs to be addressed urgently by this Welsh Government, as does the Act being interpreted 22 different ways by 22 local authorities, resulting in a postcode lottery of how ALN is being addressed across Wales.

The Welsh Government response to recommendation 7 is just not good enough. The findings of the review need to be presented before summer 2025. This is urgent. Otherwise, swathes more children will be affected by us not acting urgently on this. The variety of ways the ALN Act is being interpreted will continue to deepen those inequalities that ALN learners are presented with every day. The Welsh Government rejected recommendation 19, which called for mandatory disability awareness training for school staff. How can we expect inclusion when we don't equip our teachers with the skills to understand and support the children in their care? Recommendation 15 calls for universal provision for common conditions like dyslexia, which would have ensured that every school, regardless of location or resources, could provide support, yet the Welsh Government has rejected it. This is a missed opportunity to create fairness and consistency across the education system.

Recommendation 11 calls for practical guidance on the social model of disability in school. Without this crucial guidance, schools will be left to fend for themselves, resulting in inconsistent and inadequate approaches to inclusion. As well as the practical adaptations that need to be made in schools for physical disabilities, it is essential that adaptations for the deaf and blind become an absolute norm for schools across Wales, as most deaf children, for example, are educated in mainstream education. There is no deaf school in Wales. I'm glad you've accepted recommendation 12, but your response is quite weak. Teaching assistants are absolutely essential. Without them in the classroom, the teacher is having to deal with multiple children with multiple different needs, which is affecting the education of every child in that classroom. The struggles faced by families do not end at the school gates, of course, with travel problems often being a massive financial burden on families. Not only that, but parents are left with no option but to sacrifice their own careers and personal well-being to ensure their children receive a decent education.

The Welsh Government has failed to accept crucial recommendations here. We need a system that prioritises children, guarantees necessary support and ensures that no family is left behind. Inclusive education is not a luxury, it is a right, and therefore the Government needs to act on this. It is absolutely essential that there is faster identification of children and young people to prevent people missing out on the education that they deserve. Schools and nurseries need to be fully prepared to educate all those with all levels of ALN and other disabilities. Special schools, as we know, are bursting at the seams and no longer can accommodate all those that we normally would see in that setting. They are coming into mainstream education, so we need to accommodate that. I urge—

You need to conclude now, please.

I urge the Cabinet Secretary—sorry—to do everything she can, perhaps revisiting the recommendations, to make sure every child in Wales has the education they deserve, in whatever language they choose and wherever they choose. Thank you.

As always, I declare an interest as a father of a disabled child with additional learning needs, who will be in a special school and is currently in a resource base. So this is very much reflecting my own lived experience, but I do have some views that might diverge from some of the Members who have spoken so far.

First of all, let's put this in context. In the 1970s and 1980s, my daughter would have been in an institution, and she would have been in an institution for most of her early life. She would have spent the whole time there. It was the care in the community Act and subsequent Acts that led to the provision that we have today, and that has been built on and progressed. Sometimes it's not progressed fast enough, but the progress has been certainly made in ways that our young ALN children, autistic children, dyspraxic children are being treated better today than ever before. I think to take too much of a downbeat note on some of these things is to devalue the experience of those who suffered in the 1970s and 1980s. 

I admit I've been an absentee member of the Children, Young People and Education Committee for various reasons, not least a conflict of interest, and I am going to be leaving that committee, but I do think it's problematic to have 32 recommendations to the Government. I think that's too many. I think it sets the people we represent and the Government up to fail because resources are thin. If you try and spread those thin resources across so many recommendations, it's frankly inevitable that you will have recommendations rejected.

I can see one recommendation in there that would require massive resources on its own, and it's underpinned by the Cabinet Secretary's decision to engage in a review of the ALN Act. I think that in itself needs full resourcing, and I understand the Cabinet Secretary is holding meetings with the finance Minister presently. The finance Minister must commit the full Barnett consequentials to that ALN review to ensure that the ALN Act is fully developed and improved. But I can also understand why the Government would find it difficult to resource everything that the committee has demanded, and I suspect that committees that produce this number of recommendations will continue to find that problem in a one-hour debate.  

I'd like to look at recommendation 24:

'The Welsh Government undertakes further work to ensure a streamlining of services to deliver fully on a no wrong door approach across all public services, but with particular reference to the interaction between health and education services. This work should identify the barriers to effective coordination between services, as well as identifying best practice, and mechanisms for sharing this best practice.'

I'd like to say that I've been part of this 'no wrong door' approach in my constituency. As someone who is part of the autism community in my constituency, I've met with parents, I've held meetings at the Autistic Minds hub, and I am a member of the Sparrows ALN group where my children go to play, and through that I've met many parents who are parents of autistic children. I've found that there is a way to develop interactions between schools and health that can work, and I'd like to suggest to the Cabinet Secretary this approach. 

Within Caerphilly County Borough Council, Dr Sarah Ellis is the head of inclusion, so if someone comes to me and says, 'The school isn't working for my daughter or my son—we are not being treated correctly', I can go to Sarah Ellis and I can set up a meeting. She can intervene in the school on their behalf, and the trail doesn't end there. If there are further improvements that need to be made in the school, the school will make the improvements and will be able then to link up with the health service through my office. I think this is scalable, and it's scalable, I think, at minimal cost. Given that Caerphilly council is doing it, I think it can happen across authorities in Wales, and I'm happy to help the Cabinet Secretary develop a map of what might be done. But certainly, what is happening there is effective and that is the principle of no wrong door—you can enter at any point and make sure that your travel through the system is smooth, and you end up in the right place at the right time in the right circumstances. 

But fundamentally, this is one of resource; although I've tried to reduce the amount of resource I'm suggesting for that recommendation, this is one of resource. And if the review of the ALN Act and the resource that is required for the recommendations that have been accepted is not applied and is not considered by the finance Minister, then I fear we will find ourselves in a very difficult position. I wish the Cabinet Secretary every success in getting full funding for her department. 

I’d like to thank the Children, Young People and Education Committee for this important report. I was a member of the committee at the beginning of the inquiry, and I have been following the work throughout. I am Plaid Cymru's spokesperson on children's rights, and I believe that children's rights are at the heart of this report. Wales is proud of the fact that we lead the way in considering children's rights when creating policies. The adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and its subsequent incorporation into the Rights of Children and Young People (Wales) Measure 2011, were progressive steps that sent out a clear signal that our nation is seeking to protect our youngest and most vulnerable citizens, not only from harm but also from being ignored, disregarded, and prevented from developing to their full potential. What I think is at the core of this voluminous report is that the Welsh Government is violating the rights of disabled children by not ensuring equal access to education and childcare, and that that is having a significant impact. 

The impact of all of this, of course, is hitting their families too. I'd like to thank one of my constituents, Betsan Gower Gallagher from the Swansea valley, for giving evidence to the committee about her experience as a mother of twins with autism. She said that her children were non-verbal, but that the inquiry had given them a voice. She described her endless struggle to obtain the support that her children are entitled to. I have seen with my own eyes the pressure and frustration that this is causing for Betsan, and I'd like to pay tribute to her and all the other witnesses who shared their experiences with the committee. Because they are exhausted from fighting, writing letters to people like us, to councils and officials, to schools, calling, e-mailing, waiting and being ignored or turned away. The committee heard time and time again that this ongoing struggle for basic rights was affecting their own health and their ability to work. Betsan was told by an official in the council that she should consider giving up work.

As chair of the cross-party group on human rights, I'd also like to draw specific attention to the fact that the right to education is not only a basic human right, but is also an essential means of reducing poverty and a means of enabling everyone to play a part in society. Without access to the same education and care, disabled children are significantly disadvantaged, with barriers placed before the choices that meet their needs and their aspirations as they become adults. What the committee revealed, in terms of a lack of access to suitable and inclusive childcare, has been confirmed and emphasised by evidence heard by the Equality and Social Justice Committee, during our second inquiry into childcare provision. The evidence is damning and heartbreaking. Our inquiry heard that the latest annual survey conducted by Coram Family and Childcare regarding the adequacy of local authority childcare showed that only 5 per cent of local authorities in Wales had enough childcare for children with disabilities in each area.

Recommendation 5 in particular echoes the conclusions of our report in the Equality and Social Justice Committee, namely the need for the Welsh Government to act in order to simplify the various funding streams available to childcare providers. Without taking robust action to create a system that is seamless, accessible and consistent throughout Wales, there will be no solution to the question of ensuring adequate provision. I'd like to echo what we heard from Carolyn Thomas in terms of recommendation 32. Guide Dogs Cymru is also very concerned that the Welsh Government has rejected that recommendation. They feel very strongly that the attainment gap that is being experienced by children and young people who are visually impaired needs a clear plan with targets set out, and it would then be possible to monitor and scrutinise that.

In its response to conclusion 1, the Welsh Government notes the expenditure that has been undertaken to support children with additional learning needs and to create new specialist provision. In finishing, I would like to note the response of one of my constituents, who has a son with autism, who e-mailed me about the Government's response to the report. 'My biggest concern', he said, 'is that the Welsh Government likes to throw large figures at the ALN programme, but as parents and people who are directly affected by the programme, we never see a detailed plan about how exactly that money is being spent, what are the outputs and how do they improve things. Has there been an evaluation yet of the progress made thus far, in order to offer hope and robust evidence to parents like me?' We have to listen to the voices of the families who are at the heart of this inquiry, and to the voice that has been given in this report, as Betsan Gower Gallagher said, to those children who have no voice. 

May I first of all add my thanks to the committee for its work, the committee membership and the clerking team, together with all those who gave evidence and were part of the exercise? I would like to focus my remarks particularly on children and young people with childhood-acquired brain injuries and a special interest group, N-ABLES, which seeks to raise awareness of these issues in education. They, in fact, conducted a survey exploring educators' understanding of childhood-acquired brain injury, and found a general lack of understanding and confidence surrounding the care and education of these children. They discovered training gaps among educators, not much content in initial teacher training courses, and a lack of understanding and confidence in terms of how you support these children, together with uncertainty around policy implementation within schools.

Thousands of children are affected by these conditions, and a significant proportion are moderate to severe, and very often these are hidden disabilities, and as a consequence, behaviour that comes from these injuries isn't seen in that light because the effects are often hidden, and then the reaction, the way that these problems are dealt with in schools, is not everything that it needs to be. There is cognitive, emotional and behavioural consequence from these injuries that impacts children's education and learning, and this often makes it difficult and frustrating for these pupils. They may demonstrate irritability, emotional reactivity, anxiety, depression, and difficulty with memory and attention and concentration spans. And, again, if these conditions aren't seen in the context of the injuries, then that is going to affect the way that teachers and other school staff deal with those issues. So, that lack of understanding from teachers in schools too often results in misinterpretation of the behaviours and those inappropriate responses.

So, in looking at all of that, Dirprwy Lywydd, N-ABLES have come forward with recommendations around improving training uptake in Wales to increase awareness and understanding in educational settings, ways of identifying support, training and resources that educators need to give them the confidence to meet the needs of children and young people with these acquired brain injuries, and also ways of sharing best practice to improve acquired brain injury policy implementation in schools.

So, I think that this is an important part of the overall picture when it comes to disability and education in our schools, Dirprwy Lywydd, and I would like to ask the Cabinet Secretary, and indeed the Chair of the committee, to look at those particular aspects within the overall picture, because it is very, very important, obviously, for the children, young people and families affected.