Good morning, and can I welcome members of the committee and the public to this morning's meeting of the scrutiny of the First Minister? Just our housekeeping to start with: just to remind you that there shouldn't be an alarm today, but, if one does take place, please follow the directions of staff to a safe, secure place.
We've received apologies from Jenny Rathbone and we can welcome Joyce Watson, who's attending in place of Jenny. We have three Members who are attending online and three Members in the room. But Russell George is, unfortunately, stuck in the traffic still. He is on his way in, so, he may well join us during the session, but he is online listening to the discussion going on as it is. So, he will be fully aware of what we are saying and your answers to any questions, First Minister.
Okay. Well, as you know, our sessions are split into two parts. We have the first session, which is a theme, and the theme this week is going to be rural communities. And the second session will be on topical themes and any topical areas that we need to raise, so, that will continue. So, before we start then, First Minister, would you like to introduce the team you have with you for the record, please?
And as you're all aware, the meeting is bilingual and, if you require simultaneous translation, that's via the headsets on channel 1. If you require amplification, that should be via channel 2 on the headsets.
With that, now we'll go straight into questions, First Minister, and the first question will be on agriculture and the environment and Llyr will lead on that.
Bore da, bore da. Gaf i ofyn efallai rhywbeth cyffredinol i ddechrau, achos, yn amlwg, dyw perthynas y Llywodraeth â’r sector amaethyddol ddim wedi bod yn grêt dros y misoedd diwethaf? Gaf i ofyn, felly, beth ŷch chi fel Llywodraeth yn ei wneud i adennill hyder a ffydd y sector, a pha wersi ŷch chi wedi eu cymryd o’r modd ŷch chi, fel Llywodraeth, yn ymwneud â rhanddeiliaid wrth ddatblygu’r cynllun ffermio cynaliadwy?
I think our relationship has improved significantly in the last few months, actually, and that comes from a number of different things. So, we all know that the sustainable farming scheme comes at the end of a long period of consultation and work together. Because the UK left the European Union, there’s got to be a new way of supporting agricultural land use, including supporting food and farming. And we had a huge response to the consultation—over 12,000 responses—so, there’s no lack of interest in what’s being done, certainly. There has been a lot of work undertaken before that point. And, of course, the Senedd passed the Agriculture (Wales) Act 2023 with a range of sustainable land management principles. So, there was cross-party agreement on the broad base of the principles underpinning the scheme; it’s then when we get into the real detail of how that’s to be applied and all of the scheme requirements. And I think there has been some misunderstanding of some elements of the scheme, but that has led to, not just questions through the process, but it does also go into whether people think the whole thing can be managed.
And so, what we’ve been able to do in the last few months is to take a step back to look at all of the huge number of consultation responses that have come in to want to understand that, if there is misunderstanding of the scheme, how we can put that right, but then also to try to make sure that we can actually deliver a scheme that has got support, and that will require compromises, because there are people with entirely different views about how we should weight, what we should prioritise. So, in any choice, you have to accept that, if you’re the decision maker, you can’t please everyone who’s got an interest in the scheme. What we do need to do, though, is to try to find a way we can rebuild trust, and trust I think is the most important part in all this, and about listening to communities that will be directly affected. And, when I say that, that is both rural communities, but, actually, it's everyone in the country, because the way that our land is used and managed matters to all of us. If you think about the quality and the state of our rivers, if you think about flooding, if you think about how we get food and drink that is of high quality, how we have a successful food and drink production sector that has grown in size, it's a proper success story in the period of devolution that we should all be proud of, and it's then how you get to the next stage, and what comes next with the climate and nature emergency we face.
And I've regularly said this, that our farmers know very well there's a climate and nature emergency. I've been struck by conversations about how wet the spring has been and how actually that's a really big problem that lots of people don't really think about in agricultural terms, around whether you can get animals out from under cover and out into fields, and what that means for what you can do with crops as well. But also they don't just see the flooding and the challenges that have come with the extra number of extraordinary weather events that we get. That flooding—and I know that Jack Sargeant's communities are directly affected by it—also affects our rural land use as well, and, at the same time, when you get extraordinary heat events in the summer, as we have had in the last few summers, in a way that would have been a much more unusual event, as opposed to, 'Can we expect that to take place again this year?', well, again, our farmers see that in their land as well and what they have to do, whether they're arable or livestock farmers. So, farmers were the first group of stakeholders I met when I became the First Minister, to try to reset our relationship, to recognise that we need to have a further conversation about what takes place, but there are decisions that need to be made.
Indeed, and, as you say, there will be areas of consensus, and there will be areas where there won't be consensus and it'll be your and the Cabinet Secretary's call to make, and I think, in fairness, he's fronted up to that, and he's said as much.
A lot of people are scratching their heads as to how, after four, five, six years' consultation and many iterations of 'Brexit and our land' right through to the sustainable farming scheme, we got to a point where the sector was so, maybe, oblivious of what the proposals were, in effect, which then led to such a reaction. But, okay, we're looking forward now, not back, and I think you are right, there has been a resetting of that relationship, but there's a long way to go, I think, to get to where we all need to be.
So, my question, then, is about, of course, unless the farming community comes on this journey with the Government, you will not have anyone to deliver the ambition that we all share in terms of food production, tackling climate change, and reversing biodiversity loss. So, there's been much discussion about the very large number of universal actions that the sector is expected to implement or meet to be part of the scheme, questions about whether the costs incurred and income forgone funding model provides sufficient incentive. What can you tell us about how you will be incentivising the sector to take up the sustainable farming scheme opportunities and not find yourselves, after all of this again, with nobody there to deliver what we all want to see?
I'll bring Gian Marco in to go through some of the detail, but I think the starting point still is we've done a lot of work, with a lot of agreement on a large number of parts of the scheme. What we need to get right is all of the mechanics for that to take place. I know there's a shared understanding of what we're trying to achieve and why. I know there are some people who want a much simpler scheme, without a number of land management requirements; there are other people who want even more on the land management requirements as well. We've got to find a way to do that in a way that meets our basic requirements for sustainable and high-quality food and drink production in a way that meets the challenges that we know we all face. I'll ask Gian Marco to come in with some of the detail about how we're managing the conversation as we take through what that means in the round-tables as well.
Thank you, First Minister. Absolutely, and so we've got the round-table that, as the First Minister said, will meet for the third time at the Royal Welsh Show. Underpinning that is a stakeholder officials group, we call it, which has a slightly wider representation, and we are looking through, in effect, all of the things that have been said to us through the consultation, including some of the points the Member raised. We're looking through those individual universal actions that we proposed to see where can they be improved, where can they be simplified, perhaps, where can they be changed in order that we can best meet our objectives.
In terms of the payment methodology, that is one of the areas that the round-table will absolutely consider. We made it clear in the consultation that, whilst the consultation included more detail in relation to costs incurred and income forgone, because, being very honest, and I've said this in committee before, it's more straightforward to calculate costs incurred and income forgone—. But we made it very clear in the consultation that we absolutely recognise the need for that methodology to include social value, an element of consideration of how do we reward farmers for all of those benefits, as the First Minister said, that they provide for the whole of Wales, for everybody in Wales, whether it's clean water, clean air, a countryside for people to access et cetera. So, that commitment from Ministers to include an element of social value has always been there and continues to be there, and that will be part of the conversation. But, as I've said before in committee, it is, objectively, just a harder set of issues, which need to be unpicked.
And that's understandable, because, as you say, it isn't as measurable and it isn't as clinical, is it, to consider. So, where are you, then—because you've been saying this for a long time, that it is more difficult and less straightforward—where are you in terms of developing a potential model for measuring or providing support for that?
We are doing a lot of work behind the scenes, including with economists, to do that. The aim is to start having that conversation with the round-table relatively soon, over the summer, to see where we can get to, to see if there is a common view on how we can calculate that, and, if there is, then to obviously include that as part of the final scheme that will be decided by Ministers.
If I may, are you confident that the round-table and the carbon sequestration group that's been set up as well are moving at a sufficient pace? Because I know the Cabinet Secretary has been keen to say he's not taking his foot off the pedal, although I have to say, anecdotally, I'm hearing, particularly in relation to the carbon sequestration group—. I think there have been a couple of meetings, have there, but they're 90-minute meetings and 'see you next time.'
But the carbon sequestration group, to have met a couple of times over 90 minutes—. It's all the work that goes into it before the meeting and between them as well. And on the round-tables, as I said, they're going to have met three times before the end of July. That's actually quite a lot of pace in Government terms, in terms of not just a conversation with stakeholders, but what needs to take place to understand—[Interruption.]—to understand how you're going to get a scheme that has the maximum amount of buy-in.
And it is the challenge with the scheme rules, to make sure people understand what they are, so that you can monitor and implement them and that they actually give people a framework for action. Now, there's always a basic challenge that, when you design a scheme, you have a small set of basic rules, but, actually, there's a lot of flexibility around that, and you may then not get all the requirements you want, or you design a large number of rules and, actually, then that can be more challenging to understand which rules you've got to comply with. It's about how we balance between the two of those, as we have had to do on a range of issues, not just in rural affairs, but, actually, in a whole range of areas. As legislators, it's the balance we often have to meet. So, the ministerial round-tables would've met three times by the end of July, which does show a significant amount of commitment from the Cabinet Secretary and, I think, pace in what we want to do to get to the point where we can have a series of actions that people understand across all those areas, including carbon sequestration.
Okay. We're entering a new era, you tell us, in terms of relations between the Welsh Government and the UK Government, and we all very much hope that that is the case, because we clearly weren't in a very good place previously. So, in an agricultural context, of course, you and others have been highlighting the fact that promises were made about 'Not a penny less' et cetera. You'll be aware that the farming sector and the environmental sector have called, now, for £500 million; if you look at the Bank of England inflation calculator about where we should be in terms of funding, clearly farm input costs have gone up and what the sector is being asked to deliver is much more ambitious now than maybe was the case previously. So, what case will you be making to the UK Government for that real-terms increase in funding so that we can deliver the ambitions, again, that we share on this?
We're not going to be able to put right the last 14 years in the next 14 weeks, and I think that's a wholly unrealistic demand. In fact, over the last few months, I've actually had people look me in the eye on their doorstep and say, 'Don't tell me you can fix all this in a couple of months, because I know you can't.' And there's a real need for some honesty about the scale of the hole that has been inherited by the new UK Government. We know that people have gone through an extraordinary period of time, with the cost-of-living crisis, with austerity and with the fact that promises weren't kept, and it's about how we put that right for the future. And, actually, you've got to be able to stabilise where the country is from an economic point of view, in Wales and across the UK, and there's a number of things around our relationship with Europe and other trading partners, so we've got real challenges on a whole range of those. So, farming and agriculture was a makeweight for trade deals; it was sold out, essentially. Now, trying to put that right is really difficult, because a pattern has been set about what other international trade negotiators will expect.
And, actually, one of the things that was a dividing line—and I've always thought this was very odd, because it was the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs putting ideology before practical benefit. Having a veterinary agreement with the European Union should be of real benefit to the agricultural sector, it should make the trading that benefits us easier and more predictable, it should reduce red tape and requirements around borders. I remember lots of the pain being the economy Minister with borders responsibility, where we were looking at spending significant amounts of public money, we'd already taken huge amounts of the time of our officials that could've been spent elsewhere on trying to construct a borders regime. And the shifting sands about what that would be always made that more uncertain.
So, there's a range of things we need to do, as well as wanting to get more money available to invest in the economy and public services. What I won't do, though, Llyr, is try to say that, in the first budget of a UK Labour Government that is just over—well, in fact, it's a week old, since the Prime Minister was actually asked to become the Prime Minister now—. We're not going to resolve all of this in the first budget; we're going to have a spending review and, actually, what we need to do is we need to see an appreciating asset in the UK economy and then fairness in how that's used.
There's a case to be made about funding for Wales, about what it is possible to do. What I don't think there is is a case to say that all of this money that, we know, in the last 14 years, has been taken out of Wales—the promises that have not been kept can be put right in a couple of months. That's not an honest engagement with reality. And from the early conversations, it appears that the books are in a worse state than the public were told as well, so there's an even bigger hole than we thought. You can't click your fingers and wish that away—
What you can do is you can have a sense of purpose and stability, which has been a real issue for us in a whole range of areas, and that directly affects people's confidence, both people who are here, people who look to invest in a business here, whether that's international investment and they consider whether they want to invest in the UK, or, indeed, whether it's businesses already grounded in the UK that are thinking about, 'Do I want to carry on investing when I'm not sure what the future brings?' There is a real value in stability, and I'd be very, very happy to have a period of, yes, excitement and purpose in the Government, but stability, stability, stability to allow us to make more choices.
I agree with nearly everything you say about being pragmatic around this, it's just that I was looking for a level of ambition, maybe, that you would be turning every stone to make sure that we get everything, possibly, that we can. So, I think you're more or less saying that but you're not quite—
We'll make the best possible case for funding for Wales within the envelopes that we all know the whole of the UK has to work within, and more than that, though, I think we can have—. The 25-year celebration of devolution has been brilliant from a number of fronts, because I was a genuine young man 25 years ago, but then, in 1999, we were starting to see significant investment coming into public service and the economy. In 1997, when there was a change of Government, the first year and a bit was actually very difficult and still quite tight. There was some immediate cash injection into some services, but it took a couple of years to really start to see significant investment taking place, and I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a similar picture, where it will take time, through this term of the UK Government, before we see the sort of significant investment returns we want to in the economy and, indeed, into public services, and that's an honest engagement with the public and every stakeholder in rural and in urban Wales.
Okay. One separate issue on the water quality regulations, very briefly—just a very practical one, really. We know that there are the incoming slurry storage requirements kicking in on 1 August, but there are still a number of people in the sector who are stuck in the planning system, who can't get planning permission to provide the infrastructure, to meet those regulations. Some are still subject to tenancy issues, which doesn't allow them to meet some of those regulations. How do you propose to deal with those people in the system who cannot meet those regulations as of 1 August, through no fault of their own, effectively?
I'll come to Gian Marco, but I think we need to understand what really has happened and where the challenge lies about ability and willingness to meet the regulations, because we've made these through our legitimate law-making processes. We know there's a real challenge in terms of guaranteeing water quality for everyone who relies on it, and, as we talked about earlier, that's a conjoined responsibility when it comes to rural and urban Wales. I'll ask Gian Marco to come in with the detail.
You're absolutely right, First Minister. Obviously, our enforcement authorities, as they always do, will have those case-by-case discussions, and we will monitor the situation in terms of implementation. The only thing I would add is that, over the years, we've made quite a lot of money available, particularly to farmers, to improve their slurry storage capacity. The Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs announced a package of £20 million of funds—some of which is open now, actually—to support farmers. So, we're very much working with the farming community, and we encouraged, as part of that announcement actually, to start the planning process early, because we know that there are legitimate challenges in terms of capacity in that space. So, we're working with the farming community, including through Farming Connect and others, to encourage use of those funds, to make sure that, as best as possible, we can support farmers with any infrastructure developments.
But what does that mean in terms of a certain farm being stuck in the planning system, because the local authority have their own challenges and they can't process a planning application? You mentioned the weather earlier. Some slurry stores have to be emptied in order to expand or extend, but because of the weather, they haven't been able to do that. These are issues beyond the control of those who are actively trying to meet the regulations when they come in on 1 August, but they will now find themselves in contravention of some of those regulations, through no fault of their own.
There'll need to be a conversation with the regulators and the enforcement authorities. What you can't do, I think, is you can't say that nothing applies to anyone.
No, no, but that—. So, if you accept that, you then need to have a conversation with the regulators and the enforcement authorities about what it's practical to have done, and that's a conversation that we've set out needs to take place. That's what I've said, it's what Gian Marco said, it's what we would except to happen. That is a properly reasoned conversation to have, and that's what I'd expect to take place.
Diolch yn fawr, Cadeirydd. First Minister, bore da. Professor Stuart Cole has suggested that rural Wales has lost out on Welsh Government transport investment and day-to-day expenditure if you make a comparison with urban areas. Does your Government have any sympathy with that view, and are you thinking of any new approaches to ensure rural communities benefit equally from transport investment?
I haven’t seen the figures or the nature of Professor Cole's statement, and we've been upfront about wanting to improve transport priorities, when it comes to private use that's active travel and others. It’s also about what we want to do when it comes to investment in bus services and the rail network as well. There's been a huge amount of investment but we're clear, because we got responsibility for the core Valleys lines, and actually that then became a significant financial commitment, much more than we expected or were told to expect as well, and then the introduction of the new rolling stock—. The new rolling stock matters wherever it goes, in rural or urban Wales, but, actually, we had to spend that money on the core Valleys lines network to improve a genuinely distressed asset that we got. So, that would have skewed some of the spend.
But what we're looking to do with buses, for example, I think will be a real benefit to urban and rural Wales, and I think the Cabinet Secretary for North Wales and Transport has indicated we'll need to think about how the franchising works to make sure it does deliver for every part of Wales. And, of course, into all of the extraordinarily difficult and quite distressing budget conversations we've had to have, we have now got a Fflecsi scheme that is trying to deliver in more rural parts of Wales as well. So, our challenge is always in thinking about how we meet the needs of different communities, how we don't just look at a per head of population share, but, actually, then recognise that some of those answers will need to look slightly different in different parts of Wales. I'm sure there's a reasoned analysis to what Professor Cole sets out, but I'm not familiar with the detail of the quote you refer to.
Okay, First Minister. Well, in terms of what you say about public transport, we know that options are rather more limited in rural areas compared to urban, so I just wonder whether your administration will take a different approach to roads policy compared to the one that we saw before you became First Minister, in terms of the roads policy statement and road building test.
The policy is the policy, and I think part of our challenge has been the report from the road review panel is not Government policy. We've been clear about what that is. We have these twin challenges, these twin challenges of the reality that our former roads programme was just not affordable. We did not have the capital to meet it. And we also have the challenge of climate and nature as well. And so if you're going to try to have a bridge between a roads programme that you can't afford and you also need to take account of the climate and nature emergency we face, you've got to have a new approach. That's what the Government policy statement says, and it's then about making sure we're properly meeting the tests within it. So, it is about what can we do to improve the road network to make it safer, and that will require some improvement and delivery. What can we do to make sure we have a proper maintenance approach? Because both the reports set out that, actually, we could do more around that, both on a strategic level but also about, if we get more budget flexibility, how we enable and empower local authorities to do that. Actually, the state of the roads has been a real issue that people have raised on doorsteps around the country, and unsurprisingly so.
You then also have both the challenge and the opportunity of where the road network needs to change if you're going to deliver against some of our other wider policy aspirations. I'll give you just two examples: housing and economic development. To deliver against our housing aspirations we’ll need to identify more land, we need to understand the planning system can work better to enable land to come forward in a more predictable way. You're going to need to have road infrastructure around it, and then how you design that is one of the things that the policy statement will help us with as well. So, you design something, and you design in to make active travel and the private and public transport travel something that is easier to manage and safer to manage as well.
On economic development—you'll know this in your own constituency, as indeed I'm sure all Members around the physical and virtual table will know—there are times you need to consider your road infrastructure as a means to enabling economic development. One of the problems I had with the panel was that part of what it said in writing I think would have prevented economic development in large swathes of Wales. If you're really talking about a 20 or 30-minute test in terms of travel and what happens, there are large parts of Wales where you're essentially saying you can't change the road network to enable economic development. I thought that was a mistake.
Prif Weinidog, perhaps I can move on to affordability and people in rural areas who are struggling with the cost of transport. Of course, people tend to be disproportionately dependent on private cars, but public transport is a real issue as well. Your Cabinet Secretary for North Wales and Transport is interested in policies such as free transport for young people. I just wondered what you can say about that affordability issue, particularly in a rural context.
Our challenge is how we maintain a bus network. The grant we have has been hugely important in maintaining the current bus network. It is then the ambition that I set out on Tuesday in the legislative programme statement about making sure that we deliver on reregulation of buses and what that means for franchising. Because, actually, if we make more efficient use of the money we currently use to support the current network in a way that isn't optimal or efficient, we'll actually have opportunities to not just have a better bus network, but to then have a much better way to invest in supporting usage of that network, and, in particular, some of the genuine social and economic challenges of different passengers.
I'm very proud of the support we provide for older passengers when it comes to the bus network. We also know that there's a real challenge for young people, in particular in getting to education and training opportunities and getting to work, and the social side of it as well. I'd like us to be in a position where we have a network that is more rational, where there's a better use of public money, and then I think there are opportunities to do something about how we support people to make better use of the network as well. And all of that should help to maintain the farebox. Because our challenge in all of this is we need to persuade people that it's a service that's worth using, and then they need to use it. And then we can carry on investing in that as well. All of this is a picture that needs to see the full circle of what we can do.
Thank you, Prif Weinidog. In terms of the upcoming bus Bill, how will that help smaller operators who typically feature to a greater extent in the rural areas, and are there examples of good practice from anywhere else in terms of those rural challenges and bus services that you would cite as perhaps giving a pointer to how we might move forward here in Wales?
If I talk generally, and then I'll come to you, Tracey. On what we're looking to do, the franchise you'd run for Newport would probably look different to the franchise you'd run for Powys. And so there's an understanding of what works for the market in those areas, about how you'd want to franchise that, and that's a conversation that needs to take place with local authorities as well. We're looking to test what that franchising model could look like to make sure you don't simply say there is a one-size-fits-all approach.
The other point is that Cardiff Bus and Newport Bus have both been maintained as cohesive units. Most other parts of Wales don't have that. So, there's a different base to build on depending on where you are in Wales. But we do take seriously the challenge and the opportunity of making sure that different transport operators have a fair opportunity to take part in the new franchising regime that we want to introduce.
Thank you. I think we're extremely mindful that those smaller and medium-sized operators play a really vital role in many communities, be it through school transport or other community groups. Right from the start, we've been aware that there could be a risk that the size of contracts means that smaller operators can't compete. We've been working really hard with industry to look ahead to the procurement exercise to make sure that we're packaging contracts that are size appropriate for small and medium-sized operators to apply for, because we really do recognise both the social and local value of operators. We'll be building that value into the procurement exercise, learning lessons from elsewhere, as you rightly say.
So, as part of the bus Bill and the franchising arrangements, you will make sure the criteria to address some of the poverty issues and some of the small operator challenges they face will be part of the franchising agreement and franchising proposals.
When we get into the detail of franchising, a key part of it will be to look at not just the overall cost, but, as we do in all procurement decisions, to look at local and social value. So, as I say, we're very mindful that there are a number of SME operators, particularly in rural areas, and we want to make sure that there will be contracts and packages that they can apply for that are size-appropriate for them. That will be part of our procurement work after the Bill, which we're beginning now.
If I might move on to rail services. The recent timetable review by Transport for Wales is resulting in service cuts in some rural areas. There is a concern that those rural areas are being disproportionately disadvantaged compared to the picture around Wales and that their needs are not sufficiently considered. How would you respond to that, First Minister?
[Inaudible.]—that it disadvantages rural Wales. What we're doing is we're trying to deliver a significant investment programme in the areas that we are responsible for, and you're starting to see that in real terms with not just the money we've spent, but what it means in terms of the quality of the passenger experience and the reliability of that experience as well. I'm very proud of the fact that TfW is now the best performing franchise in Wales, comparing each of the routes with its local competitors, and by a material difference, including through rural Wales.
We've had some real challenges in some of our routes in the heart of Wales, and it's one that I've been asked about before. On one of those routes, at one point there are on average six passengers on it. You can run a Fflecsi bus service; you can't run a Fflecsi rail service. What we do, though, need to do, and what we're trying to do, in working with partners, is to understand where there are alternatives for transport, including public transport, if that moves from five to four services. And that does still mean that we'll be running a service on a regular basis that will connect through rural mid Wales. But we have to have something that we can actually run on a sustained basis, and that means there has to be other public transport options. In an ideal world, I'd like to run services that are turn-up-and-go in every part of the country, but we know that we have to be able to deliver investment in a way that is sustainable for the passenger and for the resource that we have. And that's already meant improvements for passengers through rural Wales.
I've had lots of free advice in the last few months in different parts of Wales, but in particular in some of the conversations in rural north Wales, where people have been genuinely positive about having new trains and what it has meant, and that the service is more reliable and a more pleasant passenger experience as a result. If we'd had this conversation five years ago, I'm robustly confident that I'd have had a very different conversation with those rail users. The encouraging thing is a number of them said that they were now starting to use the train more. That's the big challenge for us, because after the pandemic, we had a collapse in public transport use, for reasons that are entirely understandable. Giving people the confidence to come back and then the understanding it'll be a better experience and a more reliable one is essential for all of us if we're going to generate the passenger use and their wider network we want to have.
John, I'll need to move on in a second, but I want to ask one question on this. There's been discussion that the south Wales metro has been dominant in the thinking of Government. It covers the Valleys areas. The Swansea bay and west Wales and north Wales metros perhaps are not so dominated by rail but have more integrated approaches. How far down the line is the thinking for those two types of metros, to ensure that those communities can also benefit from a combination of public transport available to them? Because in my constituency it will mainly be buses, in South Wales West. In the north, it’s going to be a lot of buses. The Valleys tend to have the railways, because they survived after Beeching; our communities' railways didn’t survive after Beeching. So, how far down the line is the Government thinking and preparations for the metros outside the south Wales metro?
There is work that’s being done about what those could look like. Some of it depends on rail infrastructure, some of it depends on what we’re doing on buses as well, to make sure there’s a properly integrated approach. Again, it’s the regularity and the predictability and the reliability of services that we’re most interested in, in making sure there’s a proper offer to make to people as well.
I know that the Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales has already talked about this, and I know that James Price has talked about this as well in recent scrutiny. Our challenge is our understanding of our future budget to allow us to deliver against that, but the thinking of what that could look like is being undertaken within the Government. The reason why the core Valleys lines were there is because it was an immediate issue that we had, and, actually, if we’d not delivered against that, then I think what we’d have found is an even more expensive approach to doing that.
It does show that, even with the significant investment that’s been required, we’ve done it. It’s taken some time, but there is now an appreciably better service that is being delivered. And that should give people confidence, as we move to delivering a metro service we want to in other parts of Wales, that we can do it, we’ve got the capacity to do it, and we’ve got the will to do it as well. As ever, I can’t give you a definitive time frame, even though I know everyone would like me to, but that’s about the balance of being honest and ambitious.
Diolch, Cadeirydd. First Minister, when you were economy Minister, in November 2023 you published the Welsh Government’s 'Economic mission: priorities for a stronger economy'. The document set out the intention of Government to agree a new, shorter set of priorities with the regions to focus on urgent priorities. What’s the latest position on that document? Have those opportunities been identified, have they been agreed, and, if so, how are the needs of rural communities across Wales being met within that?
We have got a different picture depending on the regional partners we’ve got. The new Cabinet Secretary for the economy has set out again how to take that forward. There's the work that we need to do with those partners. What I would say is, even since 2023, compared to now, there’s still been a huge amount of disruption, with new initiatives that came in from the previous UK Government, where you either drop the ball and say, ‘We don’t want anything to do with this’, or you need to shift what you’re doing. So, actually, that’s been part of our challenge.
What we do expect to see, though, is that in each of the regions that we have as partners, they have an approach and a plan that looks at the whole of that region. Even the Cardiff capital region has a significant chunk of rural Wales in it. Every one of our regions has rural partners they need to work with and for. There are also areas where there are particular opportunities—I'm thinking about advanced manufacturing, thinking about Llanberis, where Siemens Healthineers are. It's a rural part of Wales, but there are hundreds of high-quality jobs. The direct investment that I signed off has meant that that’s been safeguarding jobs, but also expanding others as well.
There are lots of other examples where rural Wales is very much part of what we think about. Because if you can’t provide economic opportunity, then people will leave. And what we don’t want to see is all the consequences of that potential increase in depopulation from rural Wales. Duncan, do you want to say something about the work that is currently ongoing about taking that mission forward with rural partners?
Yes, certainly. In terms of the mission, the new Cabinet Secretary has set out, building on that mission, two key priorities: a focus on productivity in all parts of Wales, but also working in a dynamic way with all stakeholders—local authorities, business, academia, et cetera—to really deliver on that objective.
As you know, we have the existing regional economic frameworks in place that we’ve developed in conjunction with partners. I guess it’s probably worth—. It comes out in the examples. The First Minister has just mentioned Siemens in Llanberis. We have a number of really interesting projects that we’re working on. In addition to the growth deal activity in all parts of Wales, there are things like the YASA research and development centre in Welshpool, where we’ve invested £2 million in a new R&D centre. But also, there's some cross-Government work. If you look at the town centre regeneration funding, £0.25 million has been provided to a company not far from here, Delineate. Basically, we’ve converted a school in the town to be able to do leading market research. So, we're generally able to intervene in all parts of Wales. And I think, fundamentally, we shouldn’t forget that the Government’s main services deliver in all parts of Wales. So, Business Wales, the Development Bank of Wales, they are out there delivering as required in rural as well as urban spaces. And indeed, a service like Business Wales is pretty much focused on those harder to reach, where the private sector hasn’t delivered, and that’s where its core focus is.
Thank you, both, for those answers. First Minister, you mentioned earlier in response to Llyr’s questions the role that connectivity plays in terms of the road networks, and we’ve had a big discussion on transport as well, but also a key element of the economic priorities of rural areas will be the digital connectivity of the area. Chair, I refer Members to my declaration of interest as having sat on a project board for 5G with Bangor University.
Digital connectivity is key. We’ve seen the Welsh Government intervene in this space over a number of years, where this is a direct responsibility of the UK Government. We’ve had lots of conversations over the last week and the weeks prior to that around resetting the relationship with the current UK Government—the new UK Government. It was good to see the Prime Minister with you just earlier this week, I think it was Monday. Have you had conversations, or will you be having conversations, with the Prime Minister or colleagues in the UK Government around digital connectivity, and where we can further enhance the connectivity of our rural communities digitally?
Yes, digital connectivity is one of the essential enablers, not just for economic life, but for lots of things we now take as standard. So, it’s not just about the economy and public services, it is about how people expect to live their lives in their own homes. We know that, I think it was in 2014, in rural Wales, 50-odd per cent of properties had broadband access. That’s now at 96 per cent or 97 per cent, and that is because of the programmes that we have run. And the challenge with that is that it’s provided real benefit to people, but it’s come from devolved budgets in an area of reserved responsibility. We could either have said, 'We’re not doing anything', and then we’d have lived with the problem—and I say ‘we’, but, actually, people in more rural communities would have lived with problem—and we chose not to do that because it’s an enabler of so many things we want to see.
What we will do, though—. And I’ll just give you an example of some of the genuine frustration in the conversations we had with the previous Government. Conversations with Ministers responsible for digital roll-out and the headline announcement made by the previous, previous, previous Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, about wanting superfast broadband to be everywhere, and then that came into an 80 per cent requirement, and actually you could deliver that without touching most of rural Britain. What we now have is, there was an additional programme and there’s been a conversation with the previous Government about whether that would be delivered by the Welsh Government, as, if you like, agents to deliver that—because we have a great deal of understanding and we have established relationships with different people—or whether the UK Government would do that. And the UK Government then said it would do it, and for the simple reason that it both wanted control, and, after all, it’s a reserved area of responsibility, but it’s also about the fact that the deal they were offering would have meant that Welsh Government's time and resources would still have been soaked up into that in a way that wouldn’t have been recognised in the funding model.
Now, I’m still not convinced that the programme that the current UK Government is inheriting will deliver for all of our communities. So, there is a window of opportunity to talk about that, but it’s the challenge of how quickly you can put right what’s gone wrong. So, yes, there will be conversations. The Cabinet Secretary for the economy is the lead Minister on this still. I think that’s the right place for leadership across the Government on this. And I am expecting now to get deeper into all of the challenges under the bonnet, and digital connectivity will be one of those, and I think there is a level of ambition and recognition that this is an important—[Inaudible.]—urban or rural Wales or urban or rural Britain.
Thank you, First Minister, for that. I have a belief that Welsh communities and Wales as a country should play a role in developing the next type of technologies for digital connectivity, rather than just keeping up the pace, and this is the opportunity to do that.
Just a quick question, First Minister, on second homes and short-term lets. There have been a number of policies through the co-operation agreement with Plaid Cymru that have been announced around second homes and short-term lets. I wonder what your assessment is of those policies and how they've impacted perhaps the wider economy and tourism sector in rural communities.
This is about the balance, isn’t it? Thinking about your first question about the balance of what is possible to do, and where and how we do it and what our reserved and devolved responsibilities are, and I agree with you, actually, that we can help to develop networks for the future and digital connectivity, and I’m very keen that we do so. When it comes to the balance of the rural economy, the visitor economy and home usage, we know we’ve had some real challenges. Lots of parts of Wales are very proud of their visitor economy and you see that in a city environment, where Cardiff, Swansea and Newport have a real offer to the visitor economy, and you see that in fantastic landscapes, castles, beaches and a whole range of things. If you look at, say, Pembrokeshire and the Llŷn peninsula as examples, proper hotspots for tourism that provide economic benefit, and yet at the same time, because we know that much of our visitor economy is seasonal, we have the objectors who want to make it less seasonal, so we get more people to take advantage of the visitor economy outside of high season, but to do that in a way where local people still have the opportunity to be housed in their own communities as well.
So, that’s the balance in wanting to understand how many properties are actually used on a short-term-let basis, which means that those properties aren’t available for longer term lets, where people either live in them or they're for private accommodation. It’s then also about the planning use opportunities for local authorities for those that are residential homes, those that are for rent, those that are for short-term rent as well. And for local authorities, this is part of the challenge. The Government can’t implement a one-size-fits-all approach here, which is why things like council tax premiums for second homes or empty homes have to be in the hands of those local authorities, to think about the balance and the management of that.
I still think the work that we’re doing on licensing and registration will help us to understand the scale of what that looks like, and then local authorities can consider the powers they do have to consider whether more can be done. And this isn’t just an issue for rural Wales; it’s an issue in urban Wales as well—it’s an issue right across Europe. There’s all the publicity about Barcelona and what they’re seeing about wanting to limit short-term lets because of the challenge of having a city that is a living city that people visit and take part in, rather than a city that becomes more and more that local people get crowded out. You see that in a whole range of areas as well—Florence has the same issues—in lots and lots of cities, places that I’m sure people around this table have visited.
Thank you, yes. If I can just ask brief questions on both the last two points raised, starting with digital connectivity. The mobile broadband providers have told me that north Wales currently has 85 per cent 4G area coverage, reaching 98 per cent of the population, although not all have connected, but only 0.5 per cent 5G coverage, reaching just 1.1 per cent of the population. Their proposed investments across the UK will potentially deliver 5G coverage to 99 per cent of the population, including 96 per cent of Wales's landmass.
In terms of broadband programmes themselves, it's 12 years since the UK and Welsh Governments agreed that the Welsh Government would deliver the superfast broadband scheme. There were two tranches of £57 million, further tranches of funding for infill in notspots and rural areas subsequently. But only yesterday I got an e-mail from a farmer in north Wales—[Inaudible.]—been in touch with Openreach. The low speeds at his property make working from home impossible. Openreach had his neighbours' properties done 18 months ago, but they're now examining to establish why that didn't happen.
So, in those joint contexts, what engagement is the Welsh Government having or is it proposing to have with Openreach and the mobile operators in relation to their ongoing work, first to reach—[Inaudible.]
And, secondly, one of the proposals that I've discussed with mobile providers and local communities is piggy-backing on local public service mobile masts in areas, often rural areas, that are there for, usually, emergency services or even armed forces to use, but could be piggy-backed on by rural communities in notspots. Again, I'm wondering what consideration the Welsh Government's given to supporting that sort of approach.
Finally, in terms of your last comments about second homes and holiday lets, as I recently pointed out in the Chamber and you're no doubt aware, the Wales Tourism Alliance has published another survey, a new survey, of over 1,500 self-catering businesses, showing that 42 per cent are either putting their property on the market or considering it. It's understood that a lot of those are not the sorts of properties that would be accessible, affordable or suitable for those in local housing need or local affordable housing need. Also, I have to say that I've witnessed personally 60 years ago on Llŷn peninsula in Abersoch, where most of the second homes in and around the village then had been built as second homes from the nineteenth-century onwards, and remain so, and are not suitable for simple transfer to meet local affordable need, even if sold. And, of course, if they are being sold, they're going to richer people anyhow. The problem's arisen in recent years, particularly in lockdown, when large numbers of homes that were traditionally occupied by local people have now been bought up for short-term holiday lets by corporate buyers and businesses. So, how better can you consider targeting the interventions where the problem really lies, rather than penalising everybody? More importantly, what cost-benefit analysis can you or will you be undertaking to monitor the impact of this on rural communities, where I'm hearing that, in some areas, this is impacting badly on small local businesses themselves, and even driving young people further out of their local communities to work elsewhere?
I'll deal with the last series of points, first, which is essentially a repeat of—from a different perspective—the point around what's the balance that we get for housing need in different parts of Wales and housing use, the balance between permanent residences for people who live permanently in that area, second homes and second residences and short-term lets. And all of those have a legitimate role to play in different communities, don't they? It's the balance and the scale of each of them, though, that is the challenge, because, otherwise, you can have a community that isn't thriving anymore and you can have a community that only exists and comes alive in the three, if you like—through the summer and, potentially, in other high-peak visitor periods. And actually, that affects a whole range of other issues as well; it affects the language, it affects local services, whether it's schools or primary care, so, actually, thinking about how a community is cohesive and living is really important in all of this. And to do that, you need to understand how the balance of the combination is used at present and then I think it's for local authorities to be able to exercise powers around planning use classes. Because, actually, otherwise—. What you can't have—. And this is one of the points about devolution, surely, isn't it? Devolution wasn't created 25 years ago so that an institution in Cardiff could control every single choice in every part of Wales. This is about investing some trust and accountability in local authorities to make some of those choices. It's why we are introducing permissive powers for local authorities, together with what we've done around saying, 'If you're running a business from a property, then it should be in one form of business taxation. If it's a home, then you have a different form of taxation'. And it's about how that property is used and some sense around whether those properties are capable of being used in different classes as well. And that's the journey that we're on.
In introducing change, there will always be people who quite legitimately say, 'I am worried this change won't have the effect you want it to', and it's also possible you'll have an individual saying, 'I think I'm in the wrong part of this.' But the difficulty is that, if you then say, 'We won't do anything', the problem that we know we have—and it is a real problem—will carry on and grow and I think then you then have the question of, 'Why didn't you do something when you knew that there was a problem?' You've got to be prepared to make changes and you've got to be prepared to both adapt and to reflect on what honestly comes back when the change is introduced. And that sometimes means you've got to pause and look again at what you're doing. But I think we're engaged in this to meet very real challenges about housing use across Wales, to understand what that looks like and then to work with people who are running businesses in and around that, as well, together with people who want to have a home for them and their family somewhere near where they've grown up. And that's the challenge we're trying to meet. I'll come to Tracey and then I'll come back to your wider points.
Tracey Burke
Thank you, First Minister. I was just going to add, with the Dwyfor pilot, which I'm sure committee members will be very familiar with, I think that is really where we're trying to test the impact and effect of both national and local interventions on a range of different things, as we've mentioned: council tax, premium non-domestic rates, empty homes grants et cetera. And I think one of the things that we've been trialling there is that local affordability issue and, in particular, more flexibility with the homebuy scheme and we've just recently done the numbers and I think we've had 21 approvals and 14 completions for homebuy, whereas, in the previous five years, we only had one completion. So, there are definitely things for us to learn from that pilot, which we are evaluating now to see what can be rolled out more nationally. But, as the First Minister said, it's a balance of competing issues here and that's why, as the First Minister has said, having that in the hands of the local authorities and the groups that understand their area best is where the flexibility is needed.
I'll have to check with colleagues on that, but I know that the housing Cabinet Secretary has committed to providing six monthly updates and the next one of those is due in September. I'm not sure if the evaluation will be completed at that point, but I know she'll be providing more information at that point.
And she is intending to be back in work come September, I hope. Everyone wishes her well following her recent operation and recovery through the summer.
Look, on the other two broad points, I think there was a point around the superfast programme and also where there's a challenge about what to do, as well as the mobile operators as well. On superfast, it again goes back to the point that this is a reserved responsibility. We agreed to undertake work with funding and we put more funding in as well, so we've actually delivered fully against the outputs expected of us in the programme. And there's always a danger and a difficulty, isn't there, when we take on some responsibility for doing more, when the immediate demand is, 'Do everything or you've failed', and, actually, I think we can be proud of the success we've achieved, in an area that we're not responsible for. We haven't just run the programme we are funded for well, and delivered against all the outputs expected for that programme; we have also delivered more with what we have added into that. Now, that still means that there are some people who don't have the coverage we'd want them to, and it will mean—. In any roll-out of programme, there are challenges in what it means.
I can't deal with the individual example the Member raises, but it's entirely legitimate for representatives to take up those cases on behalf of their constituents, to understand what's taken place in the roll-out and where it is. And, in addition to that, we've also got a range of programmes where communities can look, in a notspot area, to actually think about how they can invest together and get additional investment for it. We've got programmes that do that. The challenge always is, though, how much can we expect of ourselves, and how much we expect of people who have the actual level of responsibility, and this is a UK Government area of responsibility. I'm genuinely proud of what we done, and it has made a real difference. and I'm not going to get drawn into taking responsibility for UK Government failure for its responsibilities for more than a decade.
On superfast, I think, when you move from superfast to the mobile provision—and, again, I recognise Jack Sargeant's already referred to the fact he's been on a project board at Bangor looking at what you can do—. Where a physical architecture and cable isn't the answer, then, in some parts of Wales, actually, having a really good mobile connection can make the difference in providing services. Now, there's the project that has been taking place in Bangor; there's the work that our digital infrastructure division has been doing on trying to have a drive for the roll-out of 5G across Wales as well. This is an area where there's a leadership space, and some money might be part of the answer; it's actually also about the getting the private sector to invest in the networks that they sustain and operate as well. And actually there's a real interest in what this means, from not just those people who operate and run the networks—and there are always some challenges about where that physical infrastructure goes—but how we then understand who the best network is, depending on where you live. Interestingly, there's a lot of work done through the—. What's the programme based in Newport with Terry Matthews?
Alacrity. The Alacrity Foundation—the work that we've joint funded. And one of the projects that I think is genuinely exciting is one of those projects that looked at, in different parts of Wales, not just generally, talking about the coverage that an operator has across the country, but they're able to map and to look at where that specifically exists in different parts of the country. So, depending on where you live, your choice of operator could make a difference about how reliable your signal really is, as opposed to thinking there's 98 per cent coverage from an operator in Wales, and, actually, they may be the wrong operator for the part of Wales you live in, to get the best coverage. And that matters for individuals with their contracts, but also from a public service point of view as well, in the way that public service operatives can switch between networks as well. So, I think it's an area of real innovation that takes advantage of the way that our networks are already changing and the different solutions we're going to need, and a good example of what more we can do with the assets we have got and to make best use of them as we invest in the future.
Okay. Mark, I'm going to move on now, because we have limited time left on our first session, and I definitely want to cover the areas of healthcare and educational issues in the rural communities, because, as you've talked about broadband and public transport, they all are important for access to healthcare services. Russell.
Thank you, Chair. First Minister, how is the Welsh Government meeting the challenges of providing healthcare in rural communities? I'm particularly thinking of what the Welsh Government's plan is to recruit and retain healthcare professionals, particularly dentists, doctors and other health professionals, particularly in those rural areas.
On the challenges of recruiting and retaining a workforce, we have a Wales-wide and UK-wide challenge on recruiting and retaining staff, and it's about how we both deliver incentives to try to persuade people to come to Wales, or to stay in Wales, and we also have challenges around how we incentivise working in rural Wales in particular.
So, on dentistry, we have incentivised local recruitment for dental foundation trainees. We've also recognised that there's more work for us to do in Bangor, for example, where we've got more capacity that we can take advantage of; we need to persuade people to take the places up. So, there's an ongoing and active conversation around that. The workforce challenge in rural areas more broadly is about how you understand that there are some people who just want to work and don't mind where they go, but, for lots of people, they're making choices about where they want to go. Some people will want to have a life in and around Cardiff; some people will want to have a life in and around Swansea. The two cities are different, of course. Swansea has a coastal offer in the city, and there are people who want to go there for different reasons, and some of those people won't want to be working and living in a more rural part of Wales. There are other people who deliberately want to live a life with the different quality-of-life factors you can have in rural parts of the country. That's what we recognise in 'Train. Work. Live.' and, when we started that campaign, I think there was a fair amount of cynicism on whether it would work, and actually it's been really successful in a range of areas, particularly with GP trainees, but also with nurses and midwives and others, in actually pointing out, in different parts of Wales, you can get a different life that will attract different people to it.
Our challenge always is how we continue to do that with the models of healthcare that exist, with the sort of quality you can have with it, and with international recruitment as well—so, the recent agreement with Kerala for ethical recruitment of nurses and doctors is another pipeline of work. And so it's not just one aspect, it’s a number of different things that we need to be able to achieve to have the workforce we need for today and for the future as well, and the broader underpinning that matters to rural Wales as much as urban Wales, for example the fact that we've kept our NHS bursary, the fact that there's an offer of something for something to help people in the early parts of their career as well.
What you've outlined, there are some positive proposals there, and what you've outlined previously as work going on, is all very well, but the reality is, of course, that in rural communities and larger rural towns there just are not sufficient GPs for that practice. There are large rural towns that don't have any full-time NHS dentists. So, despite what you've set out previously, do you not think that the Government needs to have a specific healthcare plan for rural communities?
We need to be able to deliver ‘A Healthier Wales’, and, if we do that, we'll deliver for rural and for urban Wales, because the models of care we look at need to take account of where and how people live. That's our big challenge, and it's not just a rural Wales challenge as well. There are Members around this table, physically and virtually, in the more urban parts of Wales where there are still issues around GP recruitment and retention, the model we have, how it shifts, and how, actually, we've got to have a model that will attract and keep people in it. That's all the issues we’ve talked about, including contract reform, including investment in the service, how much we can invest in the service, how to persuade people there's a really decent job and good quality of life to be had in different parts of Wales. And some people really do want to live a life in a rural or a market town, as a real positive.
Our challenge is, though, Russell, that, as we sit here, with all the challenges and the strains we've had, we know we do have issues to resolve in rural Wales as well, and the commitment of the Government is that we're serious about doing that.
I think the point I'm making is that I recognise that there are problems in all parts of Wales, of course there are, in terms of recruitment, but there's a deeper issue in terms of recruiting dentists, doctors and NHS professionals, particularly in rural areas of Wales. So, therefore, should there not be a workforce strategy for rural areas, and particularly when it comes to health?
I think it's always attractive on a surface level to say if you have a specific plan it will deliver outcomes in one area of the country. I think the evidence for that is pretty poor, actually. When you look at what you actually deliver and how you bring people in, it's actually about how you can persuade people there's a job that you can really enjoy and do in different parts of Wales, and how the quality of the life you can have in work and outside of work will meet that. Because, actually, we do have quite a lot of people that want to stay in Wales, that want to come back to Wales, and people that want to move to Wales for the sort of life they can have, in the private sector but also in public services as well. I don't think having a badged rural plan around that will be what delivers against that. What we need to do is to understand what is working and what isn't working as well as we want it to do, because my aspiration is that every community in the country gets good-quality public services and has an opportunity for a decent job in their community as well without needing to move on. If people choose and want to live a different life, that's different, but not to feel that you're forced into moving because you don't see those opportunities within a reasonable distance from where you live and where you want to live.
The most pressing issue, I would suggest, for people living in mid and north-west Wales is the deep, deep concern there is for the closure of two Wales air ambulance bases in Welshpool and Caernarfon. These are serious issues that have caused thousands of people worry and concern over the past two years. And can I ask you, as the First Minister, why the Government did not step in—did not step in—to ensure that those two crucial bases remain in operation?
I think the starting point is: how do you deliver a better service, a better service that can get to more people in need, to have better outcomes and to save more lives? That's why—
Let me answer the question. That's why we introduced the service in the first place; the Emergency Medical Retrieval and Transfer Service is there to deliver and to deal with that. And as it started, we've had evidence of how the service has worked, but also the serious and significant clinical leadership in this area about, 'Can we design a better service?' And, actually, the evidence presented is that we will deliver a better service for more people in moving to the new model. That's underpinned the clinical leadership and the evidence. And for the Government to intervene to overturn that clinical leadership on the basis of understandable campaigns run by local—. If you say 'Moving from two bases to one', people often fight for what's local and what's near them, and I understand that, but, actually, the very clear evidence presented and delivered by EMRTS, by its clinical director as well, says that this will deliver a better service.
And there's always a choice for the public about, 'Do you want better or not, and who do you trust to explain what "better" is, and will you trust someone who is a clinical expert in that area, or will you trust a politician at the head of a campaign?' And I don't think that there would be a basis for the Government to say, 'We are prepared to countermand and override a better service with the evidence around it'—
Sorry, First Minister, if you're suggesting politicians are leading this campaign, that's not correct. The campaigns are led by local people, tens of thousands of people signing petitions across mid and north Wales, but these aren't only the communities—these are people that are health professionals, the professionals themselves that are airing concern about bases closing in Welshpool and Caernarfon. But this is also not just those health professionals, but it's the local health boards, Powys Teaching Health Board and Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, both covering those areas, also not accepting the recommendations and showing concern over the recommendations in terms of closing these bases. This isn't politicians leading this—this is communities and health professionals. And, surely, can you not recognise the strength of feeling?
I would ask what considerations the Government can give to stepping in to fund the air ambulance bases, which is currently provided by a charity, and looking at a different model. Because do you not think, because the Government is ultimately responsible for ensuring people get transferred into urgent care as quickly as possible—do you not think that it is the Government that should take the lead on this and ensure that the funding is available to keep appropriate bases open across the entirety Wales, including mid and north Wales as well?
But we come back to the central point, don't we? This isn't about money. This is about what is the appropriate model to make sure that people have the best possible service with greater coverage at a time when that can make a difference. And the evidence that has been presented has been compelling about the change making a positive difference. And for the Government to say, 'We will ignore that evidence and introduce a system that flies in the face of that'—I don't see how you can do that. You don't always get to make easy or popular choices in the Government, but, actually, if we had done as you suggest and, you know, you have urged the Government to do on more than one occasion, I think, in a few years' time, if we then look back and say, 'That was a mistake', it won't be people running petitions and it won't be you who'll have to stand up and explain why the Government overrode a clear clinical case for improvement that would save more lives and actually get to more people at a time when that care could be provided, and this requires investment for that to happen. So, this is not about money, Russell.
One more question and I'll finish, if that's all right, Chair. You keep mentioning, First Minister, reaching more people, but do you not recognise it's about reaching the right people, not more people?
And that underpins the case, Russell, and that's the challenge here. The case is underpinned by reaching more people, more people who can gain a greater benefit—
Good morning, First Minister. I want to ask some questions around rural schools and whether you are going to support schools in rural areas and the role that they play in sustaining local communities. Is that still a priority of your Government, and how are you going to take forward the rural education action plan and a small and rural schools grant in a way that that will help maintain and help local authorities to ensure that all pupils and teachers can maximise the opportunities both to teach and to learn in rural schools?
Thank you. I think, at present, there's only one proposal to close a school, and that's on Ynys Môn; that's the only rural school proposal that is being taken forward by a council in Wales.
We changed the school organisation code, to strengthen it, in 2018, so there's a presumption against the closure of rural schools. So, councils have to meet a higher test to actually close rural schools, so the—. Look, I grew up in a rural part of the world, and where you have a primary school in particular, it makes a really big difference on a whole range of areas about services and a sense of place as well. A lot of people—. If the local primary school closes, there's a sense of loss about the sense of place and of, 'Are we important enough?', but also are there enough children growing up in that community to maintain a school? And if that doesn't happen, you know that those children are likely to have to travel further to go to a nearby school. So, it is our view that the strengthening of the code is still appropriate, that there should be a strengthening of the case that a council needs to make to change the nature of rural schools or to close them, and that remains the view of the Government. Tracey will come in and talk more about some of the issues around funding support as well.
Thank you. Yes, as you say, First Minister, it requires a high degree of consultation if there are proposals to close a school, and that includes putting the interests of the learner at the very front and centre of that and to do impact assessments. And, as you say, at the moment there's only one proposal to close a rural school.
I think you asked about the small and rural schools grant. So, that was introduced in the previous Senedd term; it was a £2.5 million grant, but it was always clear from the outset that that would be a time-limited grant. It did actually get extended beyond for an additional year, just to provide a transition point, but that was to help small and rural schools to innovate and to have more school-to-school contact, which they did. So, that funding has ended, and that funding has been repurposed around the same aims, but not in a specific grant but to continue that support, I suppose, between schools and innovation. And as part of that, the e-sgol initiative has come in, which is targeted specifically at rural schools, to try to make sure there's equality of opportunity for pupils, learners, in rural areas.
Of course, another part of learning in a rural area is access to transport. So, any review of the learner travel guidance must be, and will be, carried out with that in mind. So, how confident are you that when reviewing that you don’t put up any barriers, or more likely, you remove any barriers, so that children and young people are able to access a school of their choice?
Yes, we're taking seriously the recommendations and how we take forward the recommendations of the review, and the aim is to improve the consistency of delivery across Wales. So, there is already really good practice across a number of local authorities about how we make sure that that is shared and taken on board in other local authorities as well. And also it's about listening to the voices of children and young people in the quality and the nature of the transport that they have. We go back to some of the conversations about wanting to have a network that is sustainable, because, in some parts of Wales, it’s the normal network; in other parts, the learner actually takes part in more specific transport. What we want to understand is, not just those people who took part in the previous review and the most recent exercise, but we’ll look at the information that’s come back to us, we’re looking to take forward the recommendations of the review, and we want to make sure that we understand and spread better practice, and then assess if that better practice really is taking place in different local authorities across the country.
Thank you for that answer. And when you carry out a review of public transport in rural areas, will you be looking more widely at optimising the use of transport that serves both the school, but also the wider community, at the same time, because I’ve had lots and lots of representations where a daily bus exists for school transport, but doesn’t actually exist more widely?
I think there are opportunities, and part of the challenge is in changing the nature of a service. So, if you’re used to your children going on a service that is only for schoolchildren, some parents will be concerned about having other adults on there. And, yet, actually, if your child goes to school in an urban environment, it’s quite normal for lots of children to be on services where they’ll have additional support, and in financial means, to make sure they can use that to get to and from school. But it’s an opportunity to consider whether you could then sustain more of a network for greater value for both those schoolchildren, to make sure it underpins the financial underpinning for that service, and provide the service for others. So, it’s one of the things we’re interested in examining.
We’ve basically completed the hour and a half session, because we started a little bit later due to transportation issues. So, I’ll bring the first session to an end there, though we still haven’t yet really discussed some of the affordable housing issues in rural communities. We still haven’t the discussed the impact of the Welsh language in rural communities, and the food and drinks sector—agriculture and the SFS was the main feature. Of course, that leads on to other aspects of the food and drinks industry and the supply chains in that area as well. So, there may be some questions on that theme that we may want to write to you, First Minister, for clarification on.
But at that point, we’ll close the first session. We’ll take a five-minute break, and then we’ll come back to the second session.
Can I welcome everyone back to this morning's meeting of the scrutiny of the First Minister committee? We will now go into our second session, which will be focused on topical areas. Members will be reminded to keep it topical, please. I would hope that we're going to focus very much around the issues that are maybe arising as a consequence of the election of the new Government last week, and the implications that will have on Wales and the Welsh Government, and particular issues. And I will give you forewarning, First Minister: I will raise Tata with you at some point this morning, and how that moves forward. But the first question will come from Russell.
Thank you, Chair. First Minister, the issue around you asking Hannah Blythyn to leave Government continues to be a news story and a topical issue, and, I would suggest, possibly prevents you from continuing your work in delivering the Government's programme of work. Hannah Blythyn made a very brave statement to the Senedd Chamber this week, and it was brave of her to do so. You'll be aware, of course, that yesterday Nation.Cymru confirmed that Hannah Blythyn was not the source of the story that their news website broke. So, obviously, I'd be interested in your reaction to that. But also on Wednesday, you said:
'I won't publish the information unless every person involved is content for that to happen.'
Are you any closer to getting agreement from all those parties involved in order for you to publish that information, and is there any circumstance in which you would release that information otherwise?
Wednesday afternoon was very difficult for everyone. I do recognise that. I've been very clear from the outset that asking Hannah to leave the Government was not easy. You know people for years, and then you have to make choices about them. I think a good chunk of the human element of this has been lost, frankly. I know it's difficult in groups, as well. If I think about the leaders of your group and Llyr's group, when leaders have had to make changes, it's painful. When you go back to what happened and the choice that was made, it is only me that can choose. It's only me that has the responsibility to make that choice, and you always have to balance the evidence in front of you on the issue and then the wider implications of it.
I was surprised that the topical question was permitted. On the statement that had been made on the Tuesday, we were all told, 'This is a statement and there is no response to it.' We then essentially had a response to it the next day, and a response in a contested environment. When Hannah made her statement on Tuesday, she made clear that she did not want other people speaking for her, and we then had an afternoon of men speaking for her. I think that's difficult. When it comes to the evidence, there's no inconsistency in what I've said. I've never tried to claim that Hannah Blythyn directly contacted Nation.Cymru. I'm very clear that the evidence I had confirmed that a photograph of her phone was provided to Nation.Cymru. Ministers are responsible for their own data.
It's just worth people remembering what an extraordinary period of time we were living through in August 2020. The meeting took place on a day when there was an issue about results and exams. We were, in many ways, at the best period of time, although that's not to say everyone knew it at the time. Restrictions were broadly easing, COVID was at very low rates. And yet actually, I can tell you that at the time I was also already concerned for the future, because we were going to move into the autumn and a period of time where people would need to spend more time indoors, and we'd likely see a change. The restrictions we were all living with meant that you only had the ability to be with a limited number of people, and so our normal support mechanisms were very different.
The photograph appears in May in the hands of a journalist, and it directly affects trust within the Government. If I was only interested in myself, then I'd have essentially tried to tough it out and not do anything. I can tell you it was a real issue between Ministers. If you don't feel you can trust people, then it affects what you say and how you say it. And so I made a really difficult choice, because I thought it was the right thing to do for the Government and for the country, and it really is as simple as that.
The issue around publication is that a number of people do need to agree. In normal circumstances, when Ministers leave the Government, you tend not to publish information. That's certainly been the case when Conservative leaders dismiss people; you don't normally then have publication of evidence relied on. But I want to be really clear: when I said the evidence was there, it was and is. I'm very clear that it's a photograph of that phone. I'm very clear the Government could not have carried on in the way that it needs to to serve the country if action had not been taken.
I'm very clear that, despite all this, there is a route back in the future for people to serve again in a Government. Other Ministers have left the Government in previous times, and they've had opportunities to serve. I see no reason why the same opportunity should not be provided here. But it is about how people respond and how people behave. That is about the cohesion and the coherence of the Government. It's hard for me to constantly have people question my integrity. In all my life, as a trade union rep, as an employment lawyer, as a Member and as a Minister, I've always tried to do the right thing, including when it's difficult for me personally. That is what I am doing again, and yet here we are, with more questions and more suggestions that go to the heart of integrity and decency. And yet the Government is getting on with the job; the legislative programme I announced on Tuesday set out a range of radical legislative reforms that I believe will make our country a better place for now and for the future.
Can I just clarify one thing? Did you consider the iMessage group from where the message seemingly was leaked to be an official ministerial message group, or was it a more informal message group of Labour Members of the Senedd who happened to be Ministers?
I didn't create the group; the group was created and we were all added in. The point is if Ministers are prepared to share information about each other in a way that directly compromises each other and the trust that exists, that does go to collective responsibility and it goes to the code. The evidence is just very straightforward. You either choose to act or you choose to allow it to fester, and that affects what the Government can do. If you take out the party label, any group of Ministers would be affected by it. I have always tried to think about how to be decent, even in difficult circumstances, how we make it easier for people, and yet the constant running over the conversation makes it harder and harder not just to say and to do the right thing, as I believe I have done, but actually for lots of other people who are directly engaged and affected around this. I do think that Members on all sides need to consider that when asking questions and making comments. I just don't think the point you raise is relevant to the choice. The relevance is can Ministers trust each other, does this go to people being able to have full and frank discussions, does it go to a breach of the code. And I'm the only person with the responsibility to make the choice about what to do.
I think you're getting into weeds here. In terms of what is and isn't a formal group, what you do have is communication between Ministers, and what you do have is Ministers who should be able to trust each other. If you don't have that trust, then that leads to a very real challenge you're either prepared to tolerate or not. And as I said in the statement on Wednesday, I'd made clear to the Cabinet, without disagreement, I'd made clear to the Welsh Labour group, without disagreement, that, if you could identify where that photo had come from, then that person couldn't serve in the Government.
So, did you ask the former Minister for the authorities to be able to check any devices that may well have showed an SMS, an e-mail or a WhatsApp message being shared externally?
I think the difficulty is—. The scrutiny and the questions here are going into the weeds of where we are, and they don't get away from the essential facts, and I set this out in the statement yesterday—
In the response on Wednesday, I made very clear that the photograph could only have come from one Member's phone. I made very clear that, having cross-checked that with other versions of the conversation, it is a real part of that conversation, and you're then left with an inescapable conclusion about where it comes from.
I reject that completely. The onus is not on me to prove that. There is a very clear and simple way of looking at this, and it comes down to: can you be clear about where the photograph is taken? And once you are, that is it. Then there is a choice to make.
I'm going to stop the discussion now, because I'm fully aware that there's a debate that's been tabled for next Wednesday specifically on this particular issue, where further discussion will take place in that debate. And I'm pretty sure that there'll be other questions in First Minister's questions next Tuesday, possibly, as well, so I think there are opportunities ahead of us before the recess to have further discussions on this particular point.
I do want to move on, because there are other important topical areas that we need to reflect upon, and I'm going to go back to Tata, because, clearly, that's an important area—it's highlighted. You met the Prime Minister this week, First Minister, and he himself highlighted that Tata was an important issue that he was focusing on, and we know there's a very short window. I attended the transition board yesterday, and the transition board is not necessarily about the discussions the Government are having about the future of Tata, but more about how we support workers beyond any plans Tata have.
But in your discussions with the Prime Minister, did he lay out his vision for steel in the UK, and his plans to look at how Tata can maintain a blast furnace for a longer period of time to allow a smoother and even transition, so that workers in Port Talbot and the surrounding area do not find themselves unemployed for a longer period of time, as there will be no electric arc furnace until, I think they're talking now about the end of 2027, which could be three years down the line?
Well, I've had the opportunity to discuss this on more than one occasion, not just on Monday, with Keir Starmer and Jonathan Reynolds, and there's a clear understanding that, without a longer transition, there'll be large-scale job loss for the direct workforce and other people reliant on it. The difficulty is that we're near the end of a process from Tata's point of view, but I think it's the right thing for this Welsh Government and the UK Government to continue to make the case for a longer transition and what that will mean for steelworkers and steel communities.
The challenge comes in whether we can persuade the company to shift ground, and in terms of the planning ambition, it's set out in the manifesto. The manifesto, which has just seen the election of 27 out of 32 Welsh MPs, over 400 MPs across the UK, sets out an additional £2.5 billion to help with the transition of steel. That's in addition to the £0.5 billion that hasn't been spent around Port Talbot specifically. But, more than that, it's a manifesto that requires much more steel to deliver that future. It's whether we can persuade the company to shift to a different ground and, actually, to give clearer commitments and real action when it comes to the electric arc furnace.
Nobody believes that an electric arc furnace isn't part of the future, but there hasn't been outline planning even sought for it, so there's understandable concern, and I know you'll know this directly. Because the promise is there in public, but actually nothing's been done to advance the planning side of it, there's concern that, 'Is it really going to happen?' And those worries are real in people's minds in steel-working communities, not just in Port Talbot, but if you're a steelworker in Llanwern or Trostre or Shotton, there's a worry that if that investment isn't made, then what does that mean for their future as well? And all those downstream businesses—. Shotton can probably take lots of, if not all, electric arc steel, but it needs to know that electric arc steel is going to come, and it needs to know that it's going to be fully loaded for any transition period. Trostre needs primary steel making. You can do some of it through electric arc, but not all of it. And again, for Llanwern, with lots of quality in the product and praise for what it does, actually you need primary steel. If you can't guarantee the supply of that, then every one of those downstream businesses will be concerned about the future. So, it's the concrete nature of the commitments the company are making, getting on with a planning application to move, but also taking the window that exists, in the period of weeks that exists ahead now, to try to see if that better deal for steel really can be achieved.
Can I ask one question? I know Mark Isherwood wants to highlight a question—on Tata, I hope. One question: the previous Government didn't really engage with the Welsh Government in the negotiations; have you had any discussions as to the role that Welsh Government might have in the negotiations?
Well, the communication is radically and positively transformed. I've spoken to the Prime Minister about it. I spoke to the then leader of the opposition about it, when it looked possible that both blast furnaces could close in the week of the election. I've spoken to the shadow business Secretary about it in the weeks leading up to that. The economy Secretary had conversations with the shadow business Secretary too, and now direct conversations with the business Secretary as well. In all the time that the previous business Secretary was in post, I never had a single conversation with her, not because I didn't ask, not because I didn't write; I never had a single conversation. So, the picture is transformed, and we now have a much clearer line of sight about the arguments that the UK Government are making, and the offer that exists to engage in that. We are in a much better position. The challenge is whether we can recover the position that we've inherited.
When pressed on BBC Radio Wales on Wednesday morning, the UK Government Secretary of State for business, Jonathan Reynolds, talked about the current situation with Tata and said that the position was currently unmovable, which is clearly what the previous UK Government had also been told by Tata. What is your understanding of the term ‘unmovable’ that was used by Jonathan Reynolds to describe the situation to date regarding negotiations with Tata Steel to save jobs with Tata Steel in Port Talbot and, clearly, potentially more broadly in places like Shotton?
Well, there are two points where I simply disagree with the Member. The first is about trying to give a different meaning to what has been said by the business Secretary, in that Tata up to this point had been unmovable. The conversations that are now taking place are about whether it's possible to move them, not just with the prospect of a different Government, with different resources and different ambitions for steel, but the reality of that Government being in place.
And actually, when you generously claim that the previous UK Government found Tata unmovable throughout its time, that simply isn't true. It is simply not true. When I met Kwasi Kwarteng as the business Secretary at the steel council in Cardiff, the conversations that were already taking place with Tata made clear that a different and a better deal would have been possible. The challenge was the occupants of 10 and 11 Downing Street at the time, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, could not agree between them about whether they wanted to take that deal and to get to a space where a different level of co-investment, with a different outcome for steel making and steel communities, would actually have happened.
We are where we are now, Mark, because the previous Conservative Government did a deal that Kemi Badenoch described as 'good news'. She went to Port Talbot and said it was good news. That's what happened. So, the idea that this has been the only immovable result possible is something that I reject completely, and if you went to a steel-working community and tried to claim that, I think you'd get a pretty industrial response.
Okay. Let's move on now to other topical issues, and I think the issues of prisons and early release is an important point, and Joyce Watson wants to raise that point.
I do. First Minister, we've had statements just yesterday and this morning, really, about prisoner early release. And whilst that is a UK decision, there would be clear implications for us as a devolved nation. So, I suppose my first question is: what conversations have you had around that, and what support would be available to us here in Wales, should we find ourselves—which I'm sure we will—having to provide services to those individuals?
I think it's a really important question. It really highlights the nexus between reserved and devolved responsibilities. So, there are big challenges around prison capacity and the quality of the prison estate, and the capacity and the quality of the estate matter about what takes place with people in the prison estate, both staff and prisoners themselves. We all understand that putting someone in prison is a punishment, but we're supposed to have a mission also of rehabilitation for people who go to prison. And the problem is much of that has been lost.
The prison estate in large scale across the UK is in a really distressed state. The inspectors of prisons have talked about physical conditions, crumbling infrastructure, overcapacity, and the fact that, in some prisons, it could get to when it is genuinely full and unworkable. So, the current UK Government inherits that position, and it's entirely likely that some early release will need to continue so that our most dangerous criminals are still put in prison.
That, then, causes real challenges about the mission for rehabilitation. It's why I think the issues around probation are not simply about a contest for powers and design; it's actually about how you deliver something better as well. Because if you're going to have an unstructured release, then the Probation Service will be left with a challenge that isn't a fair fight for it about what it wants to do and needs to do. And we've all seen some of the challenges about the failed privatisation of the Probation Service as well.
I think the case for probation having an even closer link with devolved services is because of so much that affects what the Probation Service can deliver. It is about economic opportunities for people that leave prison, and that's why I think the appointment of James Timpson is so positive, because he has really walked the walk on wanting to get prisoners into economic opportunities, so they don't need to go into a different life—they can work through society, earning a wage, paying taxes and showing that it works. I've thought for a long time that the Timpson Group were a standout example of people living up to their values, but it needs an understanding of what you need to do to help those people as well.
So, if you think about housing and healthcare, healthcare in all of its forms—. Because a number of prisoners leave prison with substance misuse issues, but a whole range of other things too. I was completely struck when I went on a visit to Swansea prison, and I asked the governor whether prisoners had uniquely brilliant eyesight. We talked about pharmacy and other things, and I talked about eyesight, because I said, 'Do people not wear glasses because you don't let them, because you're worried about how the glasses will be used if there's an incident, or is it that your prisoners have all got brilliant eyesight?' And the governor, I thought, was decent, but he hadn't considered the fact that hardly anyone was wearing glasses. In the normal population, look around this table, there are lots of people wearing glasses. It's quite normal when you walk down the street to see people wearing glasses. In the prison, there was hardly anyone. And there's an issue there about eye health as well, something that isn't often thought about. People often think about substance misuse, but all those healthcare issues. So, to come from prison, for the services you'd expect to be provided in prison for the population, to then come to probation and how people interact with those services when they're not in the prison estate, and housing as well. And it's why I think that, moving forward with probation, it should be about how we can actually deliver a better service with better outcomes—better outcomes for staff, better outcomes for people leaving the prison estate, better outcomes for the taxpayer, and the communities where those people will return to as well. So, it's the reason why that's such an important point, and it's also why Lesley Griffiths is seeking an early meeting, as our lead Minister on this, with the new UK Government. And we really do look forward to working with James Timpson in his new role, both to deal with what is taking place within prisons—and I know there are people who have concerns about Berwyn and Parc; well-advertised issues that have been reported—but, crucially, when it then comes to our direct interaction and responsibility beyond the prison estate, I think there's a real conversation that could lead to better outcomes for all of us that we could actually be very, very proud of.
Thank you for that, but there's just one further element to prisons, and there is no female prison, of course, in Wales—and I'm not advocating that we have one—but if there's any early release of Welsh females from English prisons—and I remember taking evidence some years ago, and the same applies across the board—what you would expect to follow that individual back into the community doesn't seem to happen and, very often, those individuals are left trying to find their own way back into society, rather than a smoother transition that is possible by data keeping and good records on those particular individuals. So, when Lesley has a conversation, I'm hoping, First Minister, that she will bring this to the table as well, because there are already problems now with individuals being released because of poor bookkeeping and reference to those individuals.
I think you can be certain that, when Lesley Griffiths does have a meeting on this, she will definitely talk about Welsh women prisoners; not just about data, but then what that means in outcomes as well. So, you can rest assured that it is an issue that is already in Lesley Griffiths's mind, and I'm looking forward to a practical conversation about how we can make a difference. And I'm sure Lesley will want to report back to Members in the future, when she's had that early engagement, to then set out what we can then expect to do here in Wales.
And I'm assuming, obviously, the issue of early release is because there's pressure on the prison system. And I know there's been discussion about devolution of probation and youth justice to Wales, but, clearly, there's also the prison estate itself, and we know full well that Swansea and Cardiff are both overcrowded, according to the numbers they should be having. And you will recall, perhaps, several years ago, there was a plan to build a new prison, actually in my constituency. They can't build it there now, by the way, because there's a glass factory there, but are you going to have discussions about the prison estate, and will you have involvement in the plans for the prison estate, across Wales? Because, whilst there is talk about reforms and different ways of looking at restorative punishment, in one sense—so, don't send people to prison all the time, because people recognise—. Why are people in jail for seven days, for example, with the impact that could have, particularly on women, losing their children as a consequence? But are you having discussions, or will you have discussions, on the prison estate within Wales, and the consequential services knock-on effect that will have as well?
Yes, I'd like us to have a properly joined-up conversation. There are times when, as you say, there are reserved responsibilities, and prisons is a reserved area, but it matters about the knock-on consequences for devolved services. We're in a position, because of the numbers and because of the state of the prison estate, that it's possible that, whether you want to or not, the UK Government will have to build some new prisons. I don't wear that as a badge of honour, but it may be that we have better prisons and we can actually not have some of the older estate that is in real difficulty. Now, all of that is outside my area of responsibility. What is in my area of responsibility, in running the Welsh Government, is how we have a conversation with the UK Government about any changes to the estate—the current estate we have in Wales, the estate we have outside of Wales, where there’ll be Welsh prisoners, especially women prisoners, as Joyce Watson has raised, and the fact that there is no women’s prison. The Welsh Government is making a case for there to be a women’s prison in Wales, but it is about we how we understand the nexus between those, and that is part of the conversation that Lesley Griffiths will have with her counterparts in the UK Government.
The main challenge, though, is, still, how do you get a size and scale of prison estate that is fit for purpose, how do you then get the services around that, to try to make sure that rehabilitation really can take place, as well as, for the most serious criminals, where, actually, you can keep them secure on the estate for the length of time that’s required to protect the public. At the moment, we have the position where I think the official figures show that nine in 10 crimes aren’t solved. So, you’ve got a public issue here, where, actually, I think there’s a lot of public appetite that is, 'Find more criminals that are getting away with things now and punish them.' Actually, if we found and punished more now, we wouldn’t have somewhere to put them, and that’s a terrible place for us to be in. And that’s before you get into how you then make sure that the estate works in terms of its rehabilitation mission as well.
And part of that is about sentencing policy, short-term statements as well—rather, short-term punishments—but all of that is in the hands of the UK Government, about policy around sentencing. The consequences of that are real, though, for us, so, I look forward to concluding the conversations around the strategic review for probation services that is part of the manifesto commitment, and I’m positive about where I think that should end up to deliver a better service here in Wales, and, probably, in regions of England too as well.
Mark wanted to raise a question on free ports and energy as a consequence of the election of a new Government last week, and what the implications are for Wales. Mark.
Thank you; you almost caught me unawares there. As you’ll be no doubt be aware of the science in this context, with the UK Government proposing a substantial increase in energy from wind, we currently lack any economic means to store surplus electricity on the necessary scale to provide back-up, and high expansion could lead to overproduction, meaning that windfarms have to switch off and the unit cost of wind power would therefore rise. There is concern, with the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero's decision to ban North sea oil drilling, that British, and particularly Welsh, companies that were set to benefit from the Celtic free port in particular will now struggle to operate going forward. What conversations have you had with companies that could potentially be affected by this decision, and to what extent, if at all, is the take-up of the benefits of Wales's free ports in doubt?
Well, I don’t follow the Member’s scaremongering on this when it comes to North sea oil. The current licences are going to be honoured. There’s plenty of work in those for a significant period of time. I just don’t buy the idea that people who want to invest in offshore energy are somehow going to be put off that because of the well-advertised position on North sea oil and how long that work will continue, and there’s decades of work to do there.
What we do need to do, though, is to invest in the future. So, that is about how you store energy, whether it’s battery storage, or whether we can make the leap to hydrogen production, and, of course, green hydrogen production, and how you store that as well. There’s real potential there for not just a more renewable form of energy; there’s also potential for energy export as an economic asset, and indeed, of course, the supply chain, and what that means for good-quality jobs that exist in our communities. And that’s where I think that there are real opportunities.
And if you look at port investment to unlock some of that, it’s one of the things where Wales should expect that we’ll do better than we have done up to July, 4 July. Because the port infrastructure investment fund had £160 million in it, and it did not provide investment in the ports in Wales that are likely to be part of it, only Port Talbot. And it was very strange, because Port Talbot and Milford Pembroke Dock are a conjoined bid. They're part of the same bid, so not providing investment in Pembrokeshire didn't actually make a lot of sense, because it undermines the opportunity and the offer of the free port. So, I'm very positive about the fact that there is on the tin, with the current Government, there's much more investment opportunity available, and, to make the vision of both free port bids work, there's going to need to be more investment in ports. Some of that will come from the UK Government, some of that will come from the private sector, and it's about the balance of both of those, to make both of those a success in generating more energy, in then transmitting that energy and into storing it as well. And that, I think, is a really healthy economic picture for the future, and it's a good and healthy picture for the planet too.
Could I just comment? There will be a real concern, and you've dismissed the real concern expressed as 'scaremongering', so what discussions have you had or will you have with the companies potentially affected, and, more broadly, what action will you take to ensure energy security during the years of transition—and you admit that the technology is being worked on; it isn't there yet—during the years of transition to a fossil-fuel-free future?
I don't accept that it's impossible for companies who know that there is work that'll carry with the licences already issued in the North sea, and that somehow that will undermine our position on energy security. I just think that was not an honest statement made by the previous Government, and it will not save us in our planet obligations. Actually, some of the biggest challenges that came have been in turning off more mature forms of renewable energy. The undermining of the growth in solar power that took place in the early 2010s was a mistake. The undermining and the prevention of onshore wind in England is a problem not just in England, but affects bill prices everywhere, including here in Wales.
And again, I think Kwasi Kwarteng got a huge number of things wrong, but even he had been very clear in public that actually, onshore wind was mature and cost effective, and then the Government he was part of essentially stopped it taking place in England. We need to take advantage of the assets that we have and to invest in them for the future. Our energy security will not come from continuing to tie ourselves to a fossil-fuel future. We need genuine energy security about the assets we have now, to make sure that we learn some of the lessons that have come from the very recent past and the continuing present. You can't trust someone like Putin, with all of his oil and gas assets, and that means you have to invest in what works here. That is onshore wind, it is getting into offshore wind, and making sure we can generate the power that we need. So, the race for clean power to 2030 is important for the whole of the UK, and Wales should benefit from that, not just in terms of having energy sources that are renewable—that of course underpins what we do—but it's also the fact that, to get there, you have to see energy created in Wales, and then the jobs that I want to see come from them.
So, these are all things that will deliver energy security, and I think the argument around North sea oil is a distraction from where we need to be. The investment that will carry on for the licences that are already there will carry on. The much bigger investment need, with the jobs that will come from it here in Wales, will be from exploiting our renewable energy potential, and I look forward to us doing that with vigour and purpose in this Senedd term and in the next one, and indeed in the life of this Government across the UK that is committed to Britain being a clean superpower by 2030. That would be a huge achievement for all of us.
Okay, we'll move on. This week, First Minister, you gave your statement on the legislative programme, and we've already discussed the bus Bill, which was in that programme, but I think Llyr has an extra question on that.
Just a practical question, really. We were previously told by the former Deputy Minister for transport that the Bill was ready to go; we could well have seen it as a committee before the summer, if not very early after this summer. His successor now, the transport Secretary, has told us that it won't be likely to be tabled until spring of next year. I'm just interested to understand why there's a delay, and I ask, particularly, because there's a knock-on impact on learner travel, which is something that many of us as Senedd Members have correspondence around, particularly at this time of year, with learners not getting access to the transport that they need to be able to get to the education that they want and need. I'm just wondering why that's been reprofiled, seemingly, in terms of your schedule.
Well, it was a brave statement that the bus Bill would have been ready in the time suggested by the previous Deputy Minister. Since becoming the First Minister, I have looked at our legislative programme and I've had to deprioritise some areas to make sure that the rest of the programme is secure, and I can be much more certain in making the statement that I did that those priority areas would be delivered. The bus Bill was one of those areas that I was most concerned about making sure could happen. So, the update you've been given by the Cabinet Secretary for North Wales and Transport is accurate, and we are working to a timetable to make sure we complete that legislation within this term, and then we can carry on with the work of franchising and delivery of the real improvements. But we've got to change the law first, and that's what we are doing.
As I said, we have learnt lessons through delivering the legislative programme around the amount of time it takes to make sure that we're ready and in a proper place to go through with delivering the Bills, and the shape of the size of the legislation as well. So, I've had to take on board all of those issues, then, in making choices about the future of the programme, and I think we have a programme to be really proud of in a whole range of areas.
Diolch, Gadeirydd. First Minister, we know we now have a UK Government committed to dealing with the regional economic inequalities in the UK and working with the devolved bodies to that effect. I know that we have ambitions in south-east Wales in terms of help with our cyber security cluster, the semiconductor cluster, the transition to green steel and some of the infrastructure that we need in terms of rail. I just wonder, First Minister, whether in the early days of the new UK Labour Government you've yet been able to get some idea of what is set to happen, when it might happen and how Welsh Government can work with the UK Government to enable this progress.
So, I think it was genuinely positive for Wales, not just for English regions, that, in the Prime Minister's first press conference, he reiterated his previous commitment to taking power out of Westminster to people, as he described, with skin in the game, with local decision makers in English regions and in nations across the UK. I think that really matters, to get away from the mischievous idea that the UK Labour Government is somehow interested in carrying on with a centralising mission for power. We saw that with the last Conservative Government, particularly in its last term, that it was more and more interested in stopping decisions being made in parts of the country where it doesn't win elections—that can't be the right way forward—and in a number of areas to try to reclaim powers that had been voted for in referenda and in multiple elections. So, reiterating that the current UK Government wants more devolution, not less, I think is really important, so we don't go back to a damaging pattern of having to defend the powers that the people of Wales have chosen to give us.
On the specific areas and opportunities that you raise, funnily enough, when I met the Prime Minister in Cardiff on Monday, I talked about opportunities for us to make progress, and semiconductors were one of the ones that I highlighted. We had a strategy from the previous Governments with £1 billion of resource, and lots of people in the sector thought that, actually, it was unlikely to be the scale of investment required if you're to lever in private sector investment, but the strategy took years—years and years—in fact, more than one Government term. I think when the strategy started, Matt Hancock was still the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and the strategy stayed there afterwards. So, it went through a whole term of Government without being completed, which was quite extraordinary. Then, when it arrived—there's not been any vigour in pursuing it from the previous UK Government. In fact, the then Minister responsible for this area of the economy claimed that we weren't going to see Taiwan being replicated in Newport. He talked down the opportunities, rather than looking to say, 'We have a strategy, let's go out and lever in private sector investment. Let's see how we can do that.'
So, we have a backdrop of failure on this. I think, though, that the recognition of semiconductors and what we have here is unique, still, in south-east Wales. It's an area where you can actually see people wanting to invest and there's an appetite to do that. What they need is stability and I think we have that now. I'm looking forward to the conversations that I'll have but also that Jeremy Miles, the economy Secretary, will have with the UK Government about the plans that we think work with investors that we know want to come to this part of Wales as well, and to actually see how the UK Government will help and enable that to happen, as well. I think it's worth just pointing out on semiconductor courses that they're crucial to large parts of how the economy is going to work. You know, advanced manufacturing—you're going to need more compound semiconductors. If you think about the cars we're going to drive as they move to more and more electric vehicles, you're going to see more compound semiconductors, not fewer. So, this is an area of real potential for growth in the future.
Thank you. Talking about reality, we're heading towards our elections in 2026 and we've just come through an election now, but there have been some real, real concerns that have been raised about the reality of some of the Reform candidates. We've got to be clear, first of all, that Reform is not a party, it's a limited company with major shareholders being Richard Tice and Farage. And evidence is coming through from Byline Times that suggests that many of the candidates didn't actually exist—or possibly didn't exist. So, considering that we're moving into a new form of election that people will have to understand, what sorts of checks and balances will you be seeking from candidates who put their name forward for election in the forthcoming Senedd elections? Who do you propose will be overseeing that? And what sorts of conversations are you having now?
Look, it is an interesting thing that most people don't know that Reform is a private company—that's factually accurate. They are questions for Reform about their candidates, not for me. The questions, not just for me but for the Senedd generally, are about the standards that we expect of candidates and Members of all parties, or all independents who want to stand; this isn't just an issue about designing rules for Reform, this is about designing rules for all of us about our expectations about how candidates and Members who are elected behave. And we've already made some changes already in terms of some of the laws we've passed, so everyone now has to be resident. You'll remember Neil Hamilton, who is, of course, Welsh, but he didn't live in Wales and I thought that was strange, that you could be a representative in the Welsh Parliament but not be resident in Wales. So, making sure that people have to be resident in Wales is one of the changes that we have already made on a cross-party basis.
I think the work that the standards committee is doing is really important in this regard, and I said in response to questions on the legislative statement for the programme for the future, the interest in deliberate deception is something we want to take forward, to have a coherent scheme for Members to be able to consider and to vote on. It needs to consider not just that one issue, but a range of other areas, and I've mentioned the issue of harassment, including sexual harassment, which we know is an issue in the workplace and we shouldn't assume that we're immune to that in the Senedd, or the other candidates in other environments as well. What we need to do, though, is have a coherent scheme with standards that are clear for people to meet, with expertise and support for whoever the standards commissioner is to undertake their work, and that people feel that there's confidence in the process. That I think is really, really important, and that candidates understand the test that they're expected to meet. What you can't have is you publish a series of rules and expectations, and then after the event you say, 'There are other rules we expect you to meet; they're not just written down.' That's not a fair test for anyone to meet, so that's got to be for candidates and for Members, and making sure that's fairly applied. I said this in the statement: I think there are some things from Westminster we can say, 'Actually, that looks better.' So, with the recall mechanism, I think it's important that we think about how that's to be done, and that, again, is cross-party work that standards are looking at. I think they've got it wrong on their harassment procedures to have two different processes that don't interact with each other, and I don't think that makes sense, and my personal view is that we should not replicate that here.
Okay. We've come to the end of our time for this session. Could I thank the First Minister and his officials for attending today? As you will know, you will receive a copy of the transcript, and if there any factual inaccuracies, can you please let the clerking team know, so we can have them corrected? Thank you once again, and I wish you a safe journey home.
Members, I'm going to propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, to resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting. Are Members content for that motion? They are. Therefore, we will now move into private session.
So, the round-tables, which Huw Irranca-Davies is taking forward as the climate change and rural affairs Cabinet Secretary—that's already met. We expect that, I think, three will have met by the end of this month as well. And that is genuinely not just about saying, 'Let's have a reset moment,' but it is about doing the work that's required to get to a place where we can have a scheme. I think the learning is: you do need to try to take people with you. You need to understand that the environment is changing around this in physical terms, but the environment has changed since we left the European Union, and our farmers have felt the rough end of the fact that promises weren't kept. It's £0.25 billion, I think, that should have gone into the rural economy that hasn't done, so they are very much feeling the pinch and they've gone through the cost-of-living crisis just as we all have done—energy prices, what that's meant for them, all these things matter.
So, I recognise there's a huge amount of pressure here, and that's real, and how we behave as a Government and the way we have a conversation with them, the way we lead up to having to make a decision, as we must, all matters. And, when we do make a decision, I know that not everyone will agree with that, because there are some views that can't be bridged, and you have to choose. But, in choosing, it's not looking for division and conflict, it's actually looking for a scheme that can take us forward. And as we've said, high-quality food and drink production, how is that supported, how is sustainable land management embedded in what we do, meeting the very real needs of the climate and nature emergency that we have, that's a basis for agreement to work from.
The policy we have actually sets a test for road building, which I think is the right thing to do, but it recognises there are purposes for it. Housing and economic development can be that, but it's still about if you're going to change the network you've got to know what that is and how you build something in that is genuinely sustainable and doesn't simply require people to rely on private cars as the only practical means to get to places.
As ever, there's a balance in what we're trying to do to meet our varied responsibilities. I think that our policy allows us to do it. It's then the tools we have to do that. Money is part of it, ambition is part of it, but actually a willingness to make sure we design in a much better way of delivering against our competing objectives.
So, it’s the balance in all of those things. How do you maintain what is special that people take part in, to make sure you don’t have, if you like, a dormitory community that is only alive for three or four months of the year? Because I don’t think that’s healthy. I don’t think it’s what visitors want to visit, either. They want to be part of a vibrant community.
I’ll stop on this, but when we didn’t have opportunities to travel internationally, many more of us had to take and took up opportunities to visit Wales and Britain and some places we didn’t go. I had an amazing week in Aberdaron, and where we stayed, you could still see there were lots of local people working, and the politeness and the kindness, and I was thinking during that week, not just about having a fantastic time, but balancing how you maintain what is really special about having gone there—the welcome, the friendliness, the businesses that you are supporting deliberately—and how you make sure that it’s still affordable for local people to live there. And that, I think, is the real challenge that we face. It’s easier to describe the challenge than to agree what the answer should be, but I don’t think we can get there without understanding how properties are currently used and then how you understand the balance.
You might need to move around on what the premium is for having a second home, and then, if we have a visitor levy, how that can be used to actually benefit that community. It might be that a local authority would choose to invest in tourism infrastructure. It might be that they choose to make different choices. So, greater Manchester, with its levy, has chosen to use that to support more events. Well, that would be a choice that Cardiff, Swansea and Newport might want to undertake. Gwynedd and Pembrokeshire councils—whoever the leadership is—will have the opportunity to think about how they’d want to use those powers that we intend to give them and what that will mean, and then be responsible for thinking about tweaking and moving those around. But it’s all about the balance of a decent home for everyone and a place to call home, to make sure people don’t have to leave to get on, and that we’re genuinely proud of a really successful visitor economy—and not just around Wrexham. Thank you. [Laughter.]
We talked earlier about the reset in the relationship with agricultural communities. That's another positive step forward that has been made because of a choice that I have made. We've resolved the junior doctors strike, we've resolved the strike action and the industrial action ballots from specialist doctors and consultants. We have more to do on public sector pay in really difficult circumstances. On Monday, I sat down with the new Prime Minister, talking about opportunities for Wales. And I know there'll be contest around those—of course there should be, that's what a democracy is supposed to provide. I also think that our democracy is supposed to provide your elected leader the opportunity to do their job. And when people next stand up and try to question my integrity, as has happened in the Chamber of our national Parliament on a number of occasions, without facts to support it, without truth behind it, I hope that some people at least consider where this ends up for all of us. I want to carry on and do the job I've been elected to do; it really is a privilege to lead my country, and that's what I'm committed to doing.
That's where we are, and we'll continue to be where we are, and we'll continue to play a full and constructive role. I know you were in the transition board yesterday afternoon with the economy Secretary. The transition board is a forum for discussion, but actually the negotiations don't take place at the board, so it's that period of negotiating that is most important for all of us.
I'm proud of what we've done in securing KLA's investment in Wales and I think there's more we can do, and that's the plan that I want us to understand; the plans we have are not just devolution to Wales, but within Wales, including with economic partners, and then making sure that those match up with the UK Government. There is, of course, work taking place on how we have not just the commitments in manifestos, but actually seeing plans to enable us to deliver those, as well, with the Chancellor and a range of other Ministers in the UK Government. So, I think, over the coming months, you will see not just ambition in statements, but you'll see decisions being made to highlight that this is real.
Westminster also has—. There was a further point about the standards—. Oh, yes. Westminster has a process where, on its committee that decides these matters, they have elected Members, but they also have people appointed through a public appointments process, so you have people who aren't politicians taking part in the decision making. And there's a choice for us to consider I think about whether we'd want to have a similar model. Would you want an equal number of politicians and non-politicians, appointed through an open public appointment process, who take part in that? Because I think part of this is about how you give additional expertise but confidence in the process, and can we expect the public to be more confident in the process if it isn't politicians deciding on other politicians when it comes to a standards breach or process? I don't think calling it a privileges committee really changes it; it's what it does that matters, I think. You've got to think about how you want that to work.
And I think that's part of what I'd want our standards committee to consider, and to recognise that, in all of this, this isn't about pointing a finger at individuals who exist now in the Senedd, it's about saying that all of us could have a circumstance where someone in our own party, or in a different party, may need to be investigated. What process do we think should fairly and objectively apply, and how do we make sure that's coherent, and we then take on board our own responsibilities to make sure that's applied fairly? Do you want objective people within that, beyond the standards commissioner, in the decision making? Do you want more than one process, or do you think one process is the way to do it? And then what is the role of an independent adjudication within that too?
I think those are real issues for us, and there's time to do that within the Senedd term. I think it's important we do that as well. We cannot get to the 2026 election with candidates not understanding the rules that they're expected to meet, of whatever party they're in or whether they're independents. So, there's going to be a need to make sure that work happens. And then I hope that Members on all sides will take seriously the job of work in voting for that, because it can only work if there's a cross-party view on what that should be, and then how we change the law and the standards for all of us to meet.