Good afternoon and welcome to this Plenary meeting. The first item on our agenda this afternoon is questions to the First Minister, and the first question is from Rhys ab Owen.
1. What assessment has the First Minister made of the impact on Wales of the two-year delay on the Birmingham to Crewe leg of the HS2 railway line? OQ59295
Llywydd, the decision to delay aspects of the HS2 line was taken without reference of any sort to the Welsh Government or Transport for Wales. This further explodes the myth that this is an England-and-Wales project.
Diolch yn fawr, Brif Weinidog. I don't want to dwell on the great train robbery that is HS2 for Wales, and I don't want to dwell on the comments of Keir Starmer at Llandudno recently, when he refused to commit to giving Wales its fair share of HS2. I don't expect you, Prif Weinidog, to write the next UK manifesto—albeit I'm sure it would be much better if your thumbprints were on it than some UK Labour members—but I want to concentrate on where extra funding could be of assistance, where it would make a huge difference. Transport expert Mark Barry has called the Cardiff West junction in Canton a 'bottleneck'. To unblock that bottleneck would enable four trains an hour on the city line. That would transform the rail network in the capital and increase connectivity with the Valleys to no end. Would you, then, commit, Prif Weinidog, to writing to Network Rail and to the UK transport Minister to unblock that junction, and perhaps the leader of the opposition might do the same? Diolch yn fawr.
Well, Llywydd, I thank Rhys ab Owen for what he has said. And he will understand that I have to take care not to confuse the responsibilities I have as the Senedd Member for Cardiff West. In that capacity, I'm very familiar with all the arguments Rhys ab Owen has set out, and, in that capacity, I write on behalf of Cardiff residents in the way that he has suggested. As First Minister, I always have to be careful that I don't act in any way that could be taken as suggesting that I use the position I have here in this Senedd unfairly to advantage the people who live in my own area. But the Government as a whole quite certainly makes the points that the Member has raised, and makes them for all the reasons that he has set out.
First Minister, it's clear that the UK Government is determined to make public transport a more viable option for the public, unlike in Wales, where the Government is forcing people out of cars but not putting strong alternatives in place. Yes, I won't deny that the HS2 has been slightly pushed back, but it will ultimately increase rail capacity and boost growth. We have an extremely shoddy rail network in Wales, with trains often running late, or sometimes not even turning up at all. Only this week, we were being told to expect rail disruptions well into April following a spate of fires on class 175 trains. More than 100 services were cancelled or delayed as a result, and we were originally told to expect the work to be completed weeks ago. But here we are again, First Minister, facing prolonged chaos on our rail lines. So, First Minister, don't you think it's important to get your own house in order, and a good place to start might be by sacking the Deputy Minister for Climate Change?
Wow. You couldn't make it up, Llywydd, but no doubt somebody did for the Member, because she read it out for us. Look, what we've heard, even with the thinnest of material, wasn't worth the time of the Senedd. The notion that the UK Government is serious about public transport, the idea that HS2 has been slightly pushed back, where it now disappears well on the other side of the general election—. Let me just repeat the figures. I know we've heard them before on the floor of the Senedd, but they tell you everything you need to know about the record of the UK Government. While we will electrify, in those parts of the network that are under the control of the Senedd, over 170 km of railway line here in Wales, for those lines that are under the control of the UK Government, while in the UK as a whole, 38 per cent of those lines are electrified, and, in England, over 40 per cent are electrified, here in Wales, the UK Government has managed to electrify 2 per cent—2 per cent for Wales, 40 per cent for England. Does the Member really think that that is a record she's prepared to defend?
Good afternoon, First Minister. I'm calling it the great Wales train robbery—that's what the Westminster Government are doing to Wales by claiming yet again, and you've referred to this, that HS2 is an England-and-Wales project, which actually means that Wales will lose £5 billion-worth of funding. And then, to add insult to injury, last week's announcement that the Northern Powerhouse rail will be classified as an England-and-Wales project, without a metre of track being in Wales, means that we lose a further £1 billion-worth of funding for our transport system. For a fraction of that, here in Wales, we could actually make free public transport available, not just to under-25s, but actually to the whole of the population. And this is on top of decades, as you said, First Minister, of underinvestment in rail. I do want to think constructively, though, and I hope that, in your role and your relationship, I hope, with Keir Starmer, and given that there will probably be a UK Labour Government next in power, would you restore this lost funding to Wales, or, given the recent comments by Keir Starmer, has that train already left the station? Diolch.
Wel, Llywydd, first of all, the Member points to what is the fundamental difficulty at the root of what we have seen with HS2, and now, indeed, maybe with the Northern Powerhouse as well: it is the arbitrary ability of the UK Treasury to make classifications of the sorts to which Jane Dodds referred, and which ends up with the Northern Powerhouse being an England-and-Wales form of investment. It is plainly not; it is nonsensical to suggest that it is, but the Treasury is judge and jury in this matter—it sets the classification, and, if you wish to challenge it, it is the Treasury, which made that classification in the first place, that decides on whether or not they got it right. And surprisingly enough, they almost always conclude that they did. So, there is a fundamental unfairness in the system. In the negotiations carried out with the UK Government to reform inter-governmental relation machinery, we succeeded in introducing an independent element into disputes with the UK Government, where a devolved Government wished to raise an issue, other than in decisions made by the Treasury. And that is because the Treasury itself refused, even in Whitehall, and even under pressure, as I believe, from the Cabinet Office, to submit its decisions to any form of independent oversight. And that fundamental flaw continues to operate, to the detriment of Wales.
I'm grateful for what the Member said about the chance of an incoming Labour Government. And if we were in serious politics, we would understand that, if you are preparing for Government, you are not going to make a series of one-off decisions in an interview when you're asked that question. A Prime Minister preparing for Government will be making decisions in the round; we will continue to make the case—of course we will—over HS2. A mature opposition, preparing for Government, is going to have to make a whole series of difficult decisions in the round, and you don't do that by responding to requests for large sums of money in an interview.
Do you agree with me, First Minister, that it's quite instructive that the Welsh Conservatives would prefer to support the UK Government than they would to stand up for Wales? I must have got my geography lessons terribly wrong at school, because I just discovered on the weekend that the Huddersfield to Leeds railway serves Wales, and that Crewe to Manchester serves Wales, but only if you're a Tory. Because at the end of the day, when I look my constituents in the eye, they see the Welsh Government searching for funds to invest in the Ebbw valley line, as they are in Maesteg as well, and they look across the valley at Rhymney, they look across at Merthyr, they look across at Aberdare, they look across at the Rhondda, where rail infrastructure is devolved, and they see the investment that the Welsh Government is making, investment that the UK Government is not prepared to make in Wales. First Minister, do you agree with me that if we're going to end the farce of the Tories telling us that Crewe, Manchester, Leeds and Huddersfield are actually in Wales, then we need to devolve the whole of the responsibility for investment in rail infrastructure to Wales and do it here ourselves?
Well, Llywydd, the record of the Welsh Government speaks for itself: over £800 million already invested in metro developments across Wales, a further £800 million invested in new train fleets across Wales—trains made here, now, in Wales. What a contrast with the figures I gave you on electrification. What we need, Llywydd, is we need the devolution of rail infrastructure here in Wales, together with a fair funding settlement, and there's no point in having the first if you don't have the second, and, I'm afraid, the record of dealing with the current UK Government gives you very little confidence indeed that you would ever get a fair deal.
Llywydd, we work with partners to retain existing workers, recruit locally and bring new clinicians to the area. While challenges remain, and are real, mid Wales continues to be an attractive place to work, live and train. The workforce of the Powys local health board has increased by over 700 full-time posts over the last decade.
Thank you, First Minister, for your answer. There's a real issue in my constituency in accessing a GP, often having to wait for a considerable time to see a GP, and there are, obviously, the consequences of that. What I would ask, First Minister, is: what do you see as the barriers for GPs and, indeed, dentists, coming to work in mid Wales and how can those barriers be removed? In particular, I think of the performers list. There is a performers list that GPs, dentists have to apply for in order to work in Wales, and correctly so, in my view, for patient safety reasons. But we are aware, of course, of the long-standing issue where, if you graduate or live in England, you can apply for the English performers list, but there's a disincentive then to come and work in Wales. So, can I ask what you are aware of, in terms of a UK-wide performers list or a joint Wales-English performers list, or, indeed, automatically enrolling people on a Welsh performers list, if the Welsh Government is satisfied with the criteria in England and the process in England? But, ultimately, what can be done to remove any barriers to allow dentists and GPs in particular to come and live and work in mid Wales?
Well, I thank Russell George for those further questions. I was able to discuss recruitment in Powys with the chief executive of the Powys university health board yesterday. She said to me that Powys has only one managed practice and that there is a realistic hope that new contractors will be found, happy to come and take over that practice as well, and, while recruitment is challenging, as it is everywhere, it is holding up in the Powys health board area with some recent recruitment in parts of their responsibility.
I talked with Carol Shillabeer about the performers list. I don't agree that there should be a single performers list. You need to know, if a GP is practising in Wales, that they understand the way in which the policy landscape operates in Wales, the different way in which services are deployed on the ground. It's not good enough simply to say, because you are okay to practise on one side of the border, you can just automatically assume that you are fit to practise somewhere where the landscape is very different. What I believe, though, is that the transferability should be made as specific and easy as possible. There should be no artificial barriers to people being able to practise in England and Wales. You do need to be sure and confident that somebody who practises in Wales is fit to do so in the Welsh context, and a great deal of work has gone on between the English NHS and the Welsh NHS to make sure that it is as easy as possible to be able to be recognised on either side of the border. It does work both ways, because there are many people who live in England who get their primary care from staff who are employed here in Wales, and the English system would, equally, wish to make sure that people providing those services are recognised properly as competent to do the work that they are asked to do.
Thank you, Presiding Officer. Last week, First Minister, the Chancellor presented his budget. A centrepiece of that budget was the childcare offer that will be exclusive to England, because, obviously, those powers and responsibilities reside here in the Senedd and with the Government. Many people have come up to me over the weekend—it's quite surprising the amount of people who have taken note of this particular policy—assuming that it would be here in Wales as well. Can you confirm that the Welsh Government will be bringing forward a policy that will have a childcare offer for nine months to two years, and then, obviously, building on what is already the offer here in Wales?
I'm quite sure that in those conversations, the leader of the opposition has been able to explain to those people that what we see is an attempt in England to catch up with services that are already available here in Wales. It's quite certainly not the other way around. The promises—the aspirations, we might say—that the Chancellor set out, all of them carefully calibrated to make sure they land the other side of a general election, are simply attempting to catch up with the services that are already available here in Wales.
For three and four-year-olds, here in Wales, families get 30 hours of childcare for 48 weeks of the year. In England, that's 38 weeks of the year; 10 weeks fewer in England than you get in Wales. Here in Wales, just last year, in our co-operation agreement with Plaid Cymru, we have extended the reach of the childcare offer for three and four-year-olds to people who are on the cusp of employment, and 3,000 more parents are able to take advantage of that childcare offer here in Wales just on that one aspect.
My understanding is that the Chancellor says that 60,000 more people will enter the workforce as a result of his investment in childcare. We've already got 3,000 as a result of what we did for three and four-year-olds alone last year, and our record of expanding childcare for two-year-olds is something that is simply an aspiration in England. So, the real answer to the people who come up and speak to the leader of the opposition is: we already do far more in Wales than they do in England, and they'll be very lucky indeed if they catch up with where we are already.
First Minister, it was a simple question: are you going to bring a provision forward for one and two-year-olds here in Wales? You're getting the consequentials for the moneys that are being spent in England. It is a realistic proposition that people want to see delivered here in Wales. So, a simple answer could come from you, 'Yes, we will deliver it, because we're having the money, and we will deliver it by this date.' So, can we have clarity around this question? Will you deliver childcare for one and two-year-olds?
Here's a simple answer for the leader of the opposition: we will invest £70 million in capital investment in this sector, so that it can grow and take more children into childcare. There is not a penny piece, not a single penny piece, in the Chancellor's announcement of capital investment in the childcare sector in England. We will provide 100 per cent rate relief for the sector here in Wales: £10 million in rate relief to support the sector. There is not a penny piece in rate relief for the childcare sector in England either. We will introduce an extra 2,500 places for two-year-olds in Wales from April of this year, and another 4,500 new places for two-year-olds in phase 2 from September of this year.
When you add those two figures alone together, we are already—already—promising to do three times as much as the Chancellor is promising to do in England on a proportional basis. That is what we are doing in Wales. I'm not copying anybody else; this is devolved Wales where we make our own decisions. And the decisions we are making will do far, far more for far, far more families, and not on an aspirational basis, not on the basis that this may happen sometime in the distance when you know you won't be in power; we will be doing it in this Senedd term, with the money and the determination that this Senedd provides for it.
'Actual delivery', I hear your backbenchers saying. What people want to know is: will there be a universal childcare offer for one and two-year-olds that will capture people that do not benefit from that 30 hours of free childcare? You actually have the money coming to you to do that. A simple answer could have been, 'Yes, we will deliver it, and people across Wales will enjoy this benefit.' Time and time again, for ideological reasons, you choose not to bring best practice here to Wales, such as the stamp duty and the land transaction tax: £425,000 in England is the starting point for stamp duty; £225,000 is the starting point for land transaction here in Wales. [Interruption.] When it comes to—
When it comes to cladding, you don't make the decisions to benefit people who are in tinder boxes and frightened to go to sleep at night. And when it comes to business rates, you won't bring the tapering relief that's available in other parts of the United Kingdom, but we have the highest business rates of any part of the United Kingdom. And now when it comes to childcare, you refuse to bring a universal offer for childcare in to support families the length and breadth of Wales. Why do people feel that you're not doing what's right for them here in Wales, First Minister?
Well, the leader of the opposition can sloganise as much as he likes. I've given him the facts; the facts that here in Wales, we have a far more generous childcare offer and a plan to be even more generous, which we will deliver, because we have already found the money. We are already making the investment. And when the leader of the opposition sloganises at me about business rate relief, let me just remind him of what I told him just a few moments ago: if you are running a childcare business in Wales, you have 100 per cent rate relief through decisions made here in Wales—a decision to support the sector—because you will never grow childcare anywhere if you don't have places for children to go and people there to do the job. We are investing in the places and the people. We will deliver an offer in every part of Wales that doesn't simply match what is theoretically on the table in England, but will be seen in every community here in Wales.
Diolch, Llywydd. It was a privilege to be able to talk earlier to members of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru, who are here in the Senedd today. They told me that their experience of the UK COVID inquiry has deepened their resolve that Wales, like Scotland, needs its own inquiry. The only dedicated Wales-specific component promised so far is module 2B, scheduled to run for two and a half weeks this time next year. Now that's too little time, surely, for us to learn the necessary lessons for Wales; it's too late, and too few voices will be heard. To give a couple of examples: the Older People's Commissioner for Wales is not a core participant. It is in Northern Ireland. I'm told that no expert witnesses have been appointed by the inquiry who are either from Wales or with Wales-specific knowledge. And in a four-country inquiry, surely the risk is we'll be comparing ourselves with the other UK nations, whereas what we should be doing is holding ourselves up to an international comparison. Comparing ourselves with Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock is—to say the least—setting a very low bar.
I'm sorry, I didn't hear the question in what the leader of Plaid Cymru asked me, but I have many times set out the reasons why I believe that the answers that families here in Wales quite rightly wish to receive are best pursued through an inquiry that is able to look at the interconnection between decisions made here in Wales and decisions made elsewhere. I think it's very early days in the life of the inquiry to come to a series of critical conclusions about it. The inquiry is at its formative stage. Judge Hallett continues to hear from people who believe that her remit ought to be pursued in particular ways, and she has been clear that she continues to consider all those views that are put to her as to how her inquiry should operate. Where Members here feel that they have views that would be relevant to the inquiry, they should put them to the inquiry.
Well, can you outline, First Minister, as you've promised to do, what your proposals as a Government are in relation to how a special purpose committee could operate? You did promise to bring forward a motion to the Senedd, and we are yet to receive that. So, if you could update us on that, we'd be very grateful.
Now, one of the reasons we need to learn the lessons quickly is the prospect of another pandemic. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has said in the last week that mutations in the avian flu virus may suggest that the potential for a pandemic in humans is increasing. Dr Nicole Robb of the University of Warwick said yesterday that the UK's testing capacity is currently not advanced enough to cope with the transmission of the H5N1 virus from birds to humans. The new chief scientist at the World Health Organization, Jeremy Farrar, has said that Governments around the world should be investing in a H5N1 vaccine and running phase 1 and phase 2 trials. And one of the lessons for us from the COVID pandemic was that we cannot simply rely on the UK preparedness framework, First Minister. So, are we able to take these steps, suggested by those scientists, here in Wales?
Well, Llywydd, I think that Judge Hallett herself has repeatedly said that the reason that she wishes to conduct her inquiry in the way that she does—of which the leader of Plaid Cymru was critical in his first question—is precisely because she wants to make sure that lessons from the COVID experience are made available as rapidly as possible, because a further pandemic could happen and she wishes to make sure that we've been able to draw the lessons from the COVID experience. So, I think he ought to reflect a little on that in the light of his first questions to me.
As far as preparation for future pandemics is concerned, then of course the Welsh Government is alert to that danger. We follow the World Health Organization and the views of other expert groups in this area. We take part ourselves in exercises to make sure that, insofar as you can, you are scanning the horizon for what might come later, and lessons from COVID will be a very important part of the way in which we do that.
As to the first part of his question, the part to do with a Senedd committee inquiry, I have met with the leader of the opposition—the original motion was in the name of the Conservative Party. I had correspondence with Judge Hallett as a result of that meeting. A reply has been received, and I'm hopeful that I will be able to meet the leader of the opposition again before the end of this term, so that we can continue to explore what might be possible within the context of what is already taking place at the UK level.
First Minister, you will have read the recent coroner reports into the deaths of Gareth Roberts and Domingo David, who both worked for Cardiff and Vale University Health Board. The coroner found that they died from COVID acquired at work and that these deaths should be classified as deaths from industrial disease. The health board argued against that designation. I realise that it is for the UK Government to decide whether COVID should be recognised as an industrial disease for the purposes of industrial disablement benefit, but on the general question, on which the coroner found in favour of the families and the trade unions, that COVID acquired at work should be regarded as an industrial disease, what is the position of the Welsh Government? And do you also agree with the trade unions, who want to see long COVID registered as a disability for the purposes of fair and equal treatment?
As far as the first question is concerned, we continue to review the views of the coroner and to take advice from those who provide the Welsh Government with advice on those matters. As to long COVID, I think the evidence is still emerging. I think it's too early to come to a determination of the sort that the trade unions have so far suggested. Not all the evidence that is emerging actually suggests that long COVID goes on being as serious an impact on somebody's health for as long as the original studies suggested. So, while the evidence continues to be in that emerging stage, I think it's very important to have the debate, I think the views of our trade union colleagues absolutely ought to be part of that, but we continue to follow the science and the evidence, and in relation to long COVID, that is still an emerging rather than a settled picture.
I thank the Member for that question, Llywydd. Significant and sustained funding by the Welsh Government supports mental health services in South Wales West, from the expansion of direct access tier 0 and tier 1 interventions to specialist services, for example in eating disorders and psychosis.
Thank you, First Minister, for that answer. I'm sure you noticed that Healthcare Inspectorate Wales last week published an extensive report into Cwm Taf Morgannwg's discharge arrangements from adult in-patient mental health units. I'm pleased to see the majority of practices were adequate at the Princess of Wales Hospital in Bridgend, although administrative issues were identified. However, alarmingly, HIW found issues at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital, specifically for patients admitted from Bridgend, including a lack of co-ordinated discharges. In particular, there was an absence of communication between the in-patient unit and the Bridgend community mental health team, including not inviting Bridgend staff to contribute to ward rounds so they could help inform discharge planning, and team staff being unable to access important patient information. This actually led to patients being discharged from the hospital with no notice to the local team. Furthermore, pressures on the availability of beds have led staff to bring forward planned patient discharges. Although these were for patients deemed safe to discharge, there was insufficient time to communicate all relevant information to community teams. Staff were also frustrated by the amendment of discharge plans without communication or agreement between all teams. Two patients discharged from Royal Glamorgan had significant safety concerns including self-harm and harm to others. That report was published last week, First Minister, and provided 40 recommendations to the board. We are yet to hear from the health Minister in this Senedd about it. Given that Cwm Taf is still in targeted intervention because of maternity services and that Betsi Cadwaladr has been placed into special measures, what urgent action is your Government taking to ensure that no patient comes to harm as a result of poor discharge practices?
I think the Member will find that the report was actually published on 7 March, rather than last week. The health board, under the rules that are agreed with HIW, have four weeks in which to provide assurance to HIW that the concerning issues, and I agree with the Member that the issues that were identified are of concern—. There will be four weeks for the health board to provide assurances to HIW that a plan is in place to deal with them. The Minister has already directed the NHS delivery unit to meet monthly with the board, once that assurance plan is published, to make sure that it is supervised in the implementation of it. The reply of the health board will first of all need to be scrutinised to make sure that it does measure up to the issues that were set out in the HIW report. Once we are satisfied that that action plan is adequate to the task, then a monthly review of it by the delivery unit will provide the Minister with the assurances that she will need that it is being properly put into place.
4. Will the First Minister make a statement on the Welsh Government’s role in securing the long-term future of the North Wales Hospital site in Denbigh? OQ59323
The long-term future of this site is the responsibility of Denbighshire County Council and their appointed developer. The council, as the owner of the site, along with their contractors, are making progress with significant help from the north Wales growth deal funds.
Thank you for your answer, First Minister. To provide a little bit of history and background, North Wales Hospital was a former mental health asylum in Denbigh, which closed way, way back in 1995 after the implementation of the care in the community Act, which came into place in the 1980s. Since its closure, it has been subject to a lot of things like arson attacks, vandalism and urban exploration. You only need to do a quick search on YouTube or any social media to see evidence of that. But there is a silver lining in the fact that the North Wales Hospital site has secured £7 million worth of funding from the north Wales growth deal, which, of course, as you know, is a joint venture between the UK and Welsh Governments. In terms of the long-term future of the site, which is now owned by Jones Bros from Ruthin, could I ask you, First Minister, this afternoon, what the Welsh Government can do more to maximise this fund and make sure that consequential investment can be attracted to ensure the long-term viability of the site, so that people in Denbigh and the Vale of Clwyd have a site to be proud of, and to maintain the building's rich history in the town?
First of all, Llywydd, I definitely agree with Gareth Davies about the rich history of the North Wales Hospital site. A former colleague of mine who worked at Bangor University, Pamela Michael, published a really excellent book looking at the care and the treatment of the mentally ill in north Wales over two centuries, focusing very much on the Denbighshire hospital, because, Llywydd, uniquely, in the whole of that nineteenth-century period, only three people ever recorded the admission of people to the hospital in those hospital books. So, uniquely, I think, in the whole of the United Kingdom, there is a record of a whole of a century, absolutely consistently allowing you to see how people came to be admitted, the sorts of backgrounds that they came from, the sorts of illnesses from which they suffered and so on. I think it has been a great shame to see a building with such a powerful history then experience the sort of dereliction that has been there in more recent times.
The good news, as Gareth Davies says, Llywydd, is that there is now £7 million set aside by the north Wales growth deal. I think it's fair to point out that the additional money that has come from the north Wales growth deal is because the UK Government turned down the levelling-up fund application from the Vale of Clwyd. Had that levelling-up fund application gone ahead, there would have been £2.75 million to help with the demolition of those parts of the site that will not form part of its future and to repair those parts of the building that will be there. However, that opportunity came and went, and at least now, through the actions of the county council, the north Wales ambition board and the developer, there is a real prospect that phase 1 of the site’s development will get under way before the end of this calendar year and be completed within 12 months, that phase 2 will begin before the end of next year, and that 300 housing units will be provided, and business opportunities as well. I'm very pleased to see that my colleague the Minister for north Wales is to visit the site during the Easter recess. I think that that will give confidence to those local residents in Denbigh that, at last, a building that has been such a proud part of the long-term history, but has recently had such a set of difficulties, is now on a path to a successful future.
The budget provided no extra funding for health, social services or public sector pay, and offered bare-minimum additional support for people and businesses. It prioritised petrol and potholes over people and pay. The dismal decade of Tory Government ends as it began, with comprehensive neglect of the needs of Wales.
First Minister, as you know, it always takes a few hours, a few days, for the dust to settle on the magic around any budget statement at the despatch box, but we now know that the International Monetary Fund has said we will have, in the year ahead, the weakest position of all G7 nations. We will have, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility, the highest fall in the standard of living since records began, Andrew R.T. Davies—your Government. In real terms, we are £900 million down on what was set out in the 2021 spending review. And to top it all, they've given us the whopping great uplift of £1 million in capital spend. I was standing on the side of an astroturf pitch with Sarah Murphy last night where £0.75 million had been spent on that one pitch. We've got £1 million to spend across the whole of Wales. Thank you very much indeed. First Minister, would you agree that this is genuinely, truly, bar none, the worst budget settlement for Wales that we have ever seen?
One way or another, I have been involved in 23 years of UK Government budgets, and I agree with Huw Irranca-Davies—I have never seen a worse deal for Wales than we saw last week. It is absolutely unfathomable to me that a UK Government, looking at the stresses and strains that the health service is under in every part of the United Kingdom, could believe that this is a budget with no extra help for health services anywhere. Can you imagine? This is the seventy-fifth anniversary of the national health service, and despite the pressures—pressures to which Conservative politicians here in the Senedd point week after week—there is nothing at all to help either the fabric of the health service, the services that are provided, or the pay of those people on whom we rely.
And as for that £1 million, it is derisory; it is absolutely derisory. The Chancellor said that this was a budget for growth. How could he have concluded that all the capital needs of Wales—the need to modernise our school system, to invest in equipment in the health service, to provide for the digital services on which the future economy of Wales relies—were to be provided for from £1 million? It is £1 million; that is the additional money that we have in our capital budget in the second year of the Chancellor's prospectus. It's simple, it's there—you can look at it in the budget papers: we have £1 million more. We are 8 per cent below where we were in capital budgets a decade ago already, and this will just push us even further down. When Huw Irranca-Davies says that this is the worst budget we've ever seen, as far as the long-term future of the Welsh economy, he could not have put it more plainly.
I respectfully disagree with the First Minister and Huw Irranca-Davies. I felt that last week's budget was one of optimism and ambition, and central to it was protecting and supporting households across Wales, indeed the whole of the UK. I particularly welcomed, as my leader did, the expanding of 30 hours of childcare in England for all under-fives. I hoped we were going to see the roll-out of something similar here, but listening to the answer earlier, we clearly are not going to. We also welcome the paying of universal credit childcare costs upfront, extending the energy price guarantee at £2,500 for three months, and freezing fuel duty. These points will ensure all areas of Wales will benefit. First Minister, can you outline what your Government will do to build on these very positive initiatives? We've heard the platitudes; we want to see real action.
Let me repeat something that Huw Irranca-Davies said in his supplementary questions—that independent analysis of the budget says that it will lead to the highest fall in living standards since records began. Is that what the Member means by ambition? Is that the ambition the Conservative Party has for this country—that it's presided over the largest fall in living standards since records began? I don't find that a cause for optimism.
I thank the Member for the question. The Welsh Government continues to make record levels of capital investment available to support house building. The industry faces significant headwinds in construction cost inflation, labour shortages and global supply chain gaps. The Minister met with Welsh house builders last week to discuss issues facing the sector.
Diolch. First Minister, increasing house prices have left young people feeling they've been effectively priced out of the market, with many worried that they will never be able to get their feet on the housing ladder. It's clear to everyone that the target of building 12,000 homes a year here in Wales has been missed repeatedly for years. Your Government only delivered 5,273 houses in 2021-22, 90,000 are languishing on social housing waiting lists, and less than 1,000 homes were completed in October to December of last year, the second lowest level for the period since targets began in 1974. Two thousand seven hundred and thirty-nine dependent children aged 16 or under are in temporary accommodation. We're talking bed and breakfast, we're talking hotel rooms, and this number is rising—it has trebled compared to a year ago. This is a failing at the highest level of this Welsh Labour Government. So, what urgent action are you as the First Minister and, indeed, your Welsh Labour Government, taking to address these failures? And let's hope that you can respond in a professional manner—[Laughter.]—that tells people in Wales that the dream of local home ownership is achievable under your Welsh Labour Government.
Well, I thank the Member, of course, for her supplementary question. I think she'll find, actually, that, in the latest statistics, house completions in Wales in the last quarter were above pre-pandemic levels—[Interruption.] Well, actually, they were. No, they were. The Member asked me for a professional reply, and let me assure her that I will have done my homework; I have the figures in front of me, that, in the last quarter, completions of house building in Wales were above the quarter immediately before the pandemic. Housing starts are down in the last quarter; they are down in 10 of the 12 UK nations and regions, and they are down, says the house builders organisation, because of the impact of the disastrous September mini-budget, which has increased mortgage costs, increased interest costs and led, across the whole of the United Kingdom, to a reduction in house building starts.
The Member asks what we will do in Wales. Well, let me give her just one example. In England, Help to Buy has now been abolished. That form of help no longer is on offer; it hasn't been since October of last year. Here in Wales, Help to Buy—Wales has been extended for a further two years. It was raised by house builders very positively in the discussions with the Minister on 13 March. Since Help to Buy—Wales began in Wales, nearly 14,000 people have been able to move into homes that otherwise would not have been built. I'm very glad that that scheme is still available to purchasers in Wales, because it means that house builders are able to go on providing those homes. I'm sure that there are many people in England who wish it was still available there as well.
Llywydd, funding for swimming pools and leisure centres is provided to local authorities through the local government settlement. Despite the challenging financial situation, we have agreed significant additional investment for local government for the next financial year, and that will enable local authorities to continue to deliver the services that their communities need.
We have half a million people actively using our swimming pools in Wales and so, they're a really important resource for ensuring that everybody's active as far as possible. But sustainability in the long term is only possible if they are using renewable energy to fire them up. I'd love to see Wales follow the example of Exmouth swimming pool, recycling heat generated from technology businesses like Deep Green. Now, the Chancellor announced £63 million for English swimming pools in last week's budget, can we expect a consequential to be invested in sustainable heating solutions in Welsh pools, or has the Treasury decided that there is no consequential for Wales, as Welsh people are free to use English pools instead?
Well, I thank the Member for that final point. It's often difficult to disentangle where money that comes to Wales through a budget is derived, because money arrives through one funding line and disappears through cuts in another line. In the end, Llywydd, as we know, the decisions about money that comes to Wales are made not in Whitehall, they're made here, where they should be made. And Members here will hear from the finance Minister how she intends to make use of the very small amounts of additional funding, both revenue and capital, that are available as a result of the spring budget.
The Member's general points, of course, are powerful ones, and we discussed last week here the Exmouth experience. When you learn a little bit more about what has been possible in that context, you do come to the conclusion that easy replication of it will be a challenge, because the Exmouth pool is able to use the heat source that it deploys—the data centre—because it is very close by to where that pool is to be found. Nevertheless, the general point that Jenny Rathbone makes is the right one—that, if we are to be able to go on keeping available swimming pools that serve many communities in Wales, and very successfully, then sustainable heating solutions have to be part of that future.
Eleven days ago, I received a message from the voluntary board of Harlech and Ardudwy Leisure announcing with sadness that they would have to close the swimming pool at the end of this month. The announcement comes as a result of an appalling increase in their costs. The cost of the centre has increased from £4,000 per month to £12,000 per month, and this £12,000 includes the UK Government energy support scheme. Investment in solar panels and new machinery would be a great help in the longer term, but they're facing the crisis now. Fair play to Gwynedd Council, they have provided short-term support that will keep the wolf from the door, but they have to find capital as a matter of urgency to secure the viability of this important community asset. So, what support can you provide to Harlech and Ardudwy Leisure in the short term, and what support can the Government provide to ensure the viability of the centre in the longer term?
Thank you very much to Mabon ap Gwynfor for that question. I've heard about the issues that they face in Harlech, and, of course, we are open to any discussions that local individuals might want to have through the local council, and also through Sport Wales. Initially, it is a local issue, and in the first instance, it's important that they have those conversations with the local authority. If there is something that we can do, then, of course, we are willing to look into any bid that local people want to make.
Llywydd, the rural nature of the Member's constituency makes it all the more important that the health board maximises the clinical opportunities provided by today's technology to avoid unnecessary journeys, improve efficiency and provide flexible access to healthcare in Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire.
Prif Weinidog, Welsh NHS waiting lists continue to dominate my inbox. One of my constituents living with osteoporosis and five broken vertebrae has had to wait two years to be seen by a pain specialist. We are still awaiting the final decision on the location of a new hospital in west Wales—a build that won't be completed until the end of this decade at the earliest. Until that time, what action is your Government taking to ensure that waiting lists are tackled and constituents such as mine are not forced to wait over 24 months in constant pain to get the treatment that they are in desperate need of? Diolch.
Llywydd, I thank the Member for drawing attention to the work that is still going on in public consultation about the future of a new hospital for Hywel Dda University Health Board. There was a consultation meeting, I understand, in Haverfordwest last week, and there's one planned in Saundersfoot on Friday of this week. It is very important that those public consultation events—. I hope that they will draw together a local support for the plans that the health board has put forward in order to create those new opportunities.
In the meantime, while Hywel Dda, as every part of Wales, faces real pressures in providing healthcare, it did see a reduction of 62 per cent in the number of people waiting over 52 weeks for a first out-patient appointment during the last calendar year. And where there are longer waits, 80 per cent of those are concentrated in just two specialities. Those are the specialities that my colleague, the Minister for Health and Social Services, is placing a particular focus on in her discussions with the service. I can't offer, I'm afraid, just easy answers for the Member's constituents, but what they will know is that the system as a whole is making every effort it can, sustained by additional investment and the focus that the Minister brings to these matters, to bring down waiting lists and to provide services in the way I suggested in my original answer, Llywydd, in those new ways that will improve access for patients, particularly in parts of rural Wales, using everything that we have learnt in recent years.
Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd
Diolch, Llywydd. There are two changes to this week's business. Firstly, I've added a statement by the Minister for Climate Change on building safety to today's agenda, and secondly, the legislative consent debate on the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill has been postponed until next week. Draft business for the next three sitting weeks is as set out in the business statement and announcement, which can be found amongst the meeting papers available to Members electronically.
Minister, can I call for two statements from the Government, please, this week? The first is on standards of stroke care in Wales. The Stroke Association recently circulated information that showed that the latest sentinel stroke national audit programme identified that stroke services in Wales have been deteriorating, and in fact, in north Wales were worse than in any other part of the country. Most or many of the hospitals in the region were graded as 'E', which, unfortunately, is the worst grade in terms of their performance. Most patients were not being admitted to stroke units, most patients don't have access to speech and language therapy, and we've got the worst access to physiotherapy as well. Now, given, obviously, the failings elsewhere in the health service in north Wales at the moment, quite rightly and understandably, people are concerned and want to know how this situation will be improved.
The second statement that I'm requesting is an update on road safety projects in Wales, please, from the Deputy Minister for Climate Change. Obviously, we know that the roads review report recommended the axing or postponing of a number of road safety projects, including two on the A494 trunk road in rural Denbighshire in my own constituency. These are essential projects that need to proceed. They're not going to damage the climate, but they will save people's lives. The Maes Gamedd bend junction in Gwyddelwern has been on the Welsh Government's to-do list for well over a decade, and people were promised it up until as recently as 12 months ago. In addition to that, the Corwen Road and Lôn Fawr junction on the A494 trunk road is also very dangerous, with very high speeds and lots of accidents. Now, clearly those are projects that, regardless of the Welsh Government's honourable commitment to the environment and nature, need to go ahead. So, I think what the public want to know is when will they see action so that these sorts of projects can be delivered as soon as possible.
Thank you. In response to your second question, the Deputy Minister for Climate Change will be bringing forward a statement before the end of the summer term in relation to road safety and the road review, which, as you say, not everything has been cancelled—there is obviously some road building going ahead.
With regard to your question for a statement on the audit of the stroke services provided in Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board and what we'll be doing, you're very aware of what's recently been announced by the Minister for Health and Social Services in relation to the health board, and clearly, there is a significant piece of work that will be undertaken by the new chair and the new independent members with a great deal of support and monitoring by the Minister's officials and by the Minister herself, so I'm sure she will be looking at that report in detail.
Diolch, Llywydd. Trefnydd, you'll be aware of the fabulous new metro trains that are being introduced by Merseyrail across much of the metro area of the Liverpool city region. I'd be very grateful for an update from Welsh Government regarding discussions with Merseyrail regarding the potential use of these brand new Stadler units on rail lines serving the citizens of north Wales, in particular the Wrexham to Bidston line. Diolch.
Thank you very much. So, Transport for Wales are working very hard to bring forward the class 230 trains into service on the Wrexham to Bidston line. And I know that they're also in very regular discussions with Merseyrail and Merseytravel about future services on that Wrexham to Bidston line, and that includes the possibility of direct services into Liverpool also, and how they can best be delivered.
Good afternoon, Minister. I'd like to ask for a statement, please, from the Minister for Climate Change on the timeline for the next iteration of the Warm Homes programme. Within the Equality and Social Justice Committee, we have raised this issue and have looked at the importance of having a clear timeline for this programme, given its importance, as I'm sure you'll know, to many people across Wales. So, I wonder if you could give me some clarity—maybe there has been some clarity in that discussion, but I'd be grateful for a further statement. Thank you.
Thank you. As you're aware, officials have been developing the next iteration of the Warm Homes programme, which, again, as I'm sure you're very well aware, has helped many thousands of people, with help in Wales to reduce their bills and energy consumption. And unlike in England, we have maintained continued support for the retrofit of homes over the last decade and more, where our focus, really, has been on the most vulnerable and those who are at risk of fuel poverty, and will remain so. The Minister for Climate Change will bring forward a statement before the end of the summer term.
Minister, we hear from week to week about the increasing crisis facing dentistry here in Wales. Now, the British Dental Association, of course, has warned that services on the NHS could to all intents and purposes come to an end, because there are so many dentists who have either given up, or are about to give up, their NHS contracts.
Now, Ruthin is the latest dental surgery to hear this week that they'll be losing access to NHS services, and, for transparency, I'm one of the patients who uses the dentist service there. We had a statement last week from the Minister for health on dentistry in Wales, but that has made me even more concerned about the future of the service, because it's clear that there is no understanding that there are three tiers of people using the service: first is those who can afford private treatment; second, those who can't but are succeeding in accessing NHS services; but there's a third tier, and that's growing on a weekly basis, and on a monthly basis, where there are people who can't afford to go private and also can't access NHS services. Now, out of the 10 dentist surgeries around Ruthin—but I'm also talking here about Wrexham, Mold and so on—only one is receiving NHS patients at the moment, and there's a waiting list of two years to be able to access those NHS services.
So, can I invite the Government, and the Minister for health specifically, to try again with another statement, to prove to us that you as a Government are getting to grips with this issue, because it is a crisis, and, as far as I can see, you are not succeeding in dealing with it?
Well, as you referred to yourself, there was a statement here only last week on dentistry, where the Minister for Health and Social Services set out very clearly the work being undertaken. So, I won't be allocating further time.
I would like to request two statements. I found out last week that Conwy County Borough Council is paying its own care home 57 per cent more than privately-run care homes who are providing the same, exact level of care. Conwy's awarding itself £1,136 per resident per week, whilst only paying just over half that amount—£721—towards the care costs of the vulnerable residents in privately-run homes in Conwy. So, I would like the Deputy Minister for Social Services to make a statement on the clear discrimination. And this is a council, of course, run by Plaid Cymru, Labour and independent members. How can this even be ethical?
The second statement I would like is from the Minister for Health and Social Services on the cancer treatment pathway. Too many of my constituents are missing the targets to include those with serious, life-threatening cancers. We need a statement now to ensure the cancer treatment pathway is strictly adhered to, because, in some instances, this can actually save lives. Diolch.
In response to your first request for a statement, I suggest you write to Conwy council directly on that; I don't think that's a matter for the Deputy Minister for Social Services. And in relation to cancer waiting times, which I think is what you were alluding to, you'll be very well aware the NHS is working very hard to reduce waiting times, especially for people with suspected cancer, and we are investing heavily in cancer services to improve that early detection and provide rapid access to investigation, treatment and high-quality care. The Minister has recently announced £86 million for new cancer diagnostic and treatment facilities.
The next item, therefore, is the statement by the Deputy Minister for Climate Change—no, by the Minister for Climate Change, on the Environment (Air Quality and Soundscapes) (Wales) Bill. And I call on the Minister to make the statement—Julie James.
Diolch, Llywydd. I'm very pleased to make this statement in relation to the Environment (Air Quality and Soundscapes) (Wales) Bill, which was laid before the Senedd yesterday. The air we breathe, and the sounds carried on it, affect our health and well-being every minute of every day, even when we are asleep. The World Health Organization has described air pollution as the world’s largest single environmental health risk, and noise pollution as the second in western Europe. Our programme for government recognises the high importance of improving the air environment through the commitment given to bring forward this Bill, previously known as the clean air Bill.
The aim of the Bill is to bring forward measures that will contribute to improvements in air and soundscape quality in Wales, reducing public health impacts associated with a poor air environment. I know this is an aim you all support, following useful discussions with the cross-party group in November, and through commitments for a clean air Act in many of your recent manifestos. In developing the Bill, we built on proposals consulted on through the clean air plan and White Paper on a clean air Bill. We've also included proposals related to noise and soundscapes, becoming the first part of the UK to bring forward such legislation.
The Bill needs to be seen in a broad context, not in isolation. It is one part of cross-sector action under way to tackle air and noise pollution. It builds on existing legislation and the suite of actions to reduce air and noise pollution contained in our clean air plan for Wales and noise and soundscape plan. The proposals in the Bill aim to help improve the quality of our air environment at a Wales-wide level, at a local and regional level, and throughout society. The Bill also recognises the importance of considering airborne noise as a type of airborne pollution, and sound more generally as a key attribute of the air environment.
At a Wales-wide level, we are creating a framework to set national targets for air quality. This provides a strong mechanism to deliver the Welsh Government’s long-term ambitions for clean air and associated public health and environmental outcomes, alongside supporting action to tackle the climate and nature emergency. The framework complements existing legislative air quality standards. Regulation-making powers in the Bill allow Ministers to set Wales-specific, evidence-based targets in relation to air pollutants. Through the framework, we can tighten targets on air pollutants and introduce targets for newly identified pollutant risks, based on evidence as it emerges, including World Health Organization air quality guidelines. Having targets set in regulations, rather than in primary legislation, means they are easier to update and are responsive to changing evidence.
Our independent clean air advisory panel has determined the strongest body of evidence connecting an air pollutant with human health effects involves particulate matter 2.5, commonly referred to as PM2.5. Consequently, the Bill includes a duty on Welsh Ministers to make regulations to set a target for PM2.5 within 36 months of Royal Assent. At a Wales-wide level, we must ensure that sustained action is taken to improve our air environment; therefore, the Bill amends the Environment Act 1995, which contains the current provisions relating to the national air quality strategy. This ensures Welsh Ministers are under a duty to consult on a review or modification of the strategy every five years.
As mentioned, Wales is the first part of the UK to include soundscapes in legislation. The Bill places a duty on Welsh Ministers to publish a national strategy for soundscapes every five years. The requirements and timeline of both of these strategic documents are aligned, to allow us to publish them separately or collectively, where beneficial. The new proposals for these strategic documents also ensure the public, stakeholders and delivery partners are engaged in future action to improve our air quality and soundscapes. At a local and regional level, we will ensure the local air quality management regime operates proactively, preventatively, and with a greater public health focus.
The Bill introduces a clearer requirement on local authorities to undertake an annual review of air quality and an obligation for an air quality action plan, to contain a projected compliance date, which must be agreed with Welsh Ministers. The Bill will also amend the Clean Air Act 1993 to enable local authorities to better manage and enforce emissions of smoke in smoke-control areas. Smoke control covers the control of pollution from solid fuel burning from chimneys in homes and businesses within smoke-control areas. Currently, criminal offences are hard to administer and rarely result in prosecution. The Bill introduces civil monetary penalties to replace current criminal sanctions, which can be instigated by local authorities where smoke is emitted from a chimney within a smoke-control area.
The Bill removes statutory defences to help enforcement of the new civil sanctions regime. If a consumer uses an approved appliance with authorised fuel, there should be no emissions of visible smoke. By making it easier for local authorities to enforce smoke-control areas, we anticipate breaches becoming rarer, with officers encouraging behaviour change, and, if appropriate, issuing monetary penalties. We will issue statutory guidance to support the implementation. Amendments to the smoke-control regime contribute to our broader policy to reduce emissions from domestic burning, which is being dealt with outside this Bill process, using existing levers.
To support reductions in air pollution from transport, the Bill gives Welsh Ministers the power to create trunk-road charging schemes to improve air quality in the vicinity of trunk roads. The Bill also gives Ministers more flexibility to apply net proceeds arising from a scheme for the purposes of air quality, widening the current provision, which only applies net proceeds to transport measures. These new provisions enhance powers available to Welsh Ministers to implement clean air zones and low emission zones, where needed. They can result in improvements in local air quality through incentivising behaviour change. There are no current plans to utilise these powers, but they are a valuable addition to our toolkit to improve air quality, where necessary.
Stationary vehicle idling also contributes to poor air quality and unnecessary noise. We want to enhance the deterrence provided by the current anti-idling penalties regime. Currently, fixed penalties for the offence of idling are set at only £20, rising to £40 if unpaid. We've included a regulation-making power in the Bill to enable Welsh Ministers to set a monetary range of penalties. Local authorities will be able to apply an amount from the range set in regulations, and will be able to apply penalties at the higher end of the range to combat idling outside schools and hospitals, where sensitive receptors are more likely to be affected. We will issue statutory guidance to support the implementation. Local authorities have a key role to play in supporting delivery of actions under the clean air plan and this Bill.
I am pleased to announce the launch of our local air quality management support fund, which will make £1 million of funding available in the financial year 2023-24 to support local authorities in improving local air quality. This is in addition to the £450,000 we awarded over the past two financial years through pilot phases of the scheme. Through the grant, we are inviting bids across three categories, which are prevention, mitigation and innovation. I look forward to continuing to work collaboratively with local authorities to deliver this effective action.
And finally, the Bill places a duty on Welsh Ministers to promote awareness of the health and environmental impacts of air pollution, and the ways in which it can be reduced or limited. It is crucially important we ensure high levels of awareness, so that we can all protect our health and the health of our local communities, particularly those most vulnerable to air pollution. This year, sadly, marked the 10-year anniversary of the tragic death of nine-year-old Ella Kissi-Debrah. The duty was developed using recommendations from the prevention of future deaths report following the inquest into her death, which found air pollution was a significant contributory factor. The report highlights the need to address low public awareness on sources and adverse effects of air pollution. We will implement this duty by developing a delivery plan with stakeholders, which will set out actions to increase awareness of the impacts and sources of air pollution, as well as ways to reduce exposure.
Diolch yn fawr, Minister, for bringing forward, today, this statement on this Bill. As a party, we absolutely support this, and we have, over the years, religiously made many calls to the Welsh Government to bring this Bill forward and quickly. This, of course, was a key campaign pledge and manifesto pledge of the First Minister. So, it is a little disappointing that it has now taken some five years to bring it here to the Senedd. I would like to put on record my thanks to Joe Carter for his work for Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation. He has not stopped shy of challenging us all, as Members here, to ensure that this Bill comes through and that it is fit for purpose.
Air pollution accounts for 2,000 deaths in Wales each year, the equivalent of 6 per cent of all deaths. Air pollution reduces average life expectancy by seven to eight months. It is estimated that air pollution costs Wales £1 billion every year in terms of lost work days and costs to the health service, and we are all familiar with children across Wales who have asthma as a result of breathing in air that is not fit for purpose.
It’s also very worrying how the Welsh Government’s own evidence has found that people in Wales have also typically become more exposed to noise pollution. The number of people exposed to noise levels between 70 and 74 decibels, which is the average noise level for main roads, from major roads had increased from 44,600 in 2012 to 54,000 in 2017. The number of people exposed to more than 75 decibels has also increased, rising from 4,000 in 2012 to 6,600 in 2017. And the number of people exposed to more than 75 decibels from major railways—this is one for the Deputy Minister—increased from 2,100 in 2012 to 3,500 in 2017. Hearing loss can be caused by continued exposure to noise above 70 decibels. This is the real human and financial cost of the Welsh Government’s delays. So, Minister, will you now apologise for the length of time that it has taken for this Bill to come forward, during which time many more people have been suffering the effects of worsening noise pollution and air pollution?
In the consultation, respondents raised the issue of—[Interruption.] I’m glad you think it’s funny. It’s a very important Bill that is coming forward—particular proposals on the impact to lower income individuals. This was highlighted in response to suggestions of ultra-low emissions zones and anti-idling measures. In response to the latter, it was raised that fixed-penalty notices could unfairly target those on the lower incomes. There was also some uncertainty as to what vehicles would be regarded as ‘idling’, with respondents questioning whether a school or mainstream bus would count as ‘idling’ in a designated stop. So, I suppose that we’re asking for clarification on these vehicles, as well as additional vehicles—for example, vans that are unloading goods, or tractors whose trailers are being loaded or unloaded. So, to provide some clarity for individuals and businesses, will you agree—obviously, as it comes forward—to explicitly define ‘idling vehicles’, especially in relation to vehicles that load and unload goods?
Thank you, Janet. I think that I found three questions in that six and a half minutes, but perhaps you will let me know later if I'm wrong. The first question was nonsensical. I am very delighted to introduce the Bill now. The idea that we then go over the fact that we are introducing it now—I just really wasn't following you there. I think that you were accepting that we are introducing the Bill now and welcoming it, so I welcome your welcome. I also agree with you about Joseph Carter, who has been very vocal this morning, very helpfully welcoming the Bill. So, that's very nice as well.
The second thing I think you were asking me was about idling measures. I said very clearly in my statement that we would put out guidance for local authorities on exactly how the measures would work, but that, clearly, people who were asked to stop idling close to vulnerable people, such as in a school or hospital, might receive a greater fine than those idling elsewhere, but that the greatest point here is a piece of education: that people shouldn't idle at all. So, if your car is stationary, you should shut off its engine. It's a pretty straightforward thing to say to people. It shouldn't come up. If you're unloading a lorry, shut off the engine. If you're stopping your car, shut off its engine. It's pretty straightforward stuff. So, I think that answers that question, but we will be putting out guidance on a range of civil enforcement measures, because the current civil enforcement is £20, and that hasn't been a sufficient deterrent, so, clearly, we need a better deterrent there. I think that's that one.
On the road user charging points, I just disagree with you entirely, as always. Janet, you just talk all the time about climate and nature emergencies, and yet every single time we do anything at all about it, you don't want to do it. I'd be delighted to have a chat with you about what you think we should do, because I've never, ever come across anything positive. All you ever want to do is not do things. So, we are going to do that, because it is very important indeed that people who pollute our air should pay for it. Now, obviously we'll be targeting businesses and the people who make the things that pollute, but, in the end, people need to either drive more slowly so that their emissions fall down, or they need to be able to upgrade their car—I accept that lots of people can't do that. We will be upgrading the public transport network to low-emission vehicles; we have been for a very long time already. We've been upgrading, for example, the waste fleet right across local authorities to do that. We will be helping people to do that. But, in the end, if you drive more slowly and you turn off your car when you're stationary, you will significantly reduce your emissions. Frankly, if you fail to do that, then you will end up paying a charge for that, because that is absolutely right. We need to get people to do the right thing.
Diolch, Gweinidog. There is a lot to welcome in this statement, and this is a really important day. I really would welcome this from the Government. I will go on to say a little bit more about how urgently necessary this is, but I would firstly press the Government a little more on why the name of the Bill has changed. I appreciate the point that the Minister has made, that the scope of the Bill is so much wider. The reason I'm asking this is because, when the commitments were made about a clean air Act specifically, there's an argument that that would have been very self-explanatory, it would have been clear for the public to understand when public buy-in is so important, and it would have sent that clear signal. So, in that context, that's why I'm asking why it's changed. Perhaps the Government would wish us to look at this Bill as Juliet does a rose, and ask, 'What's in a name? Surely a Bill by any other name would deal with smells and pollution as potently as would a clean air Bill.' But I would still pursue this question, because the expectation surrounding the legislation was specifically about clean air, which is something that everyone can understand. So, I'd like to know a little more, if possible, please, about the decision-making process about the change and whether any consultation has been undertaken about how that could affect public engagement and what might be done to mitigate that, if so. Because we all want to avoid any thorns in the rose bush, of course, and the sting that could come from the legislation not having the changes in behavioural patterns that we all have to see, because that change is so urgently needed, as we've heard.
Roughly 2,000 people in Wales die prematurely, before their time, every year because of dirty air. The toll that heavy industry has taken on our communities from coal to steel is clear to see in the high rates of asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other diseases—they affect our lungs, they choke our breath. Exposure to air pollution is associated with higher rates of problems when babies are born—this is what I find most awful about this—like low birth weight, pre-term births, higher miscarriage rates, even the incidence of diabetes and problems with neurological development in children. Air pollution is associated with causing cancer, even exacerbating mental health problems. Again, this is why this is an important day. Yes, I've got questions and I've got some issues that I'd like to raise, but the fact that we are taking action on this cannot be overstated as to how important this really is. It's so often the poorest communities who suffer most. This isn't only an environmental and public health issue; it's a question of social justice. So, I'd like to ask you, Minister, how measures to reduce air pollution will be targeted at the areas that most need that support. Thinking, for example, of the Afan valley, which is affected by the toxic fumes coming in from Port Talbot, I know average speed cameras have been installed on the M4 through Port Talbot and air-quality readers have been put in place, but toxic clouds do sometimes still get released. Or thinking of Hafodyrynys, much closer to where I live, houses were demolished because of air pollution, but that same monitoring isn't happening everywhere. There could be other Hafodyrynyses in the Valleys that we don't know about, so any more details you could give us in addition to what's in the statement, I'd be grateful, please.
Thank you very much, Delyth, for that series of comments and questions. Obviously, we're in the same broad place here. I'm very glad to be bringing this forward. It will make a substantial difference to the people of Wales. It will also help our local authorities target their efforts, and that's very important too, and that goes directly to the heart of the social justice point you make, because what the local authorities will be asked to do is make a plan for their area that targets particular areas for particular measures. And that's where we will be able to get some of the social justice points in that you make.
It's a sad fact of life—it is in my own constituency—that, very frequently, the poorest people live in the places, and in my constituency in particular, where the air actually gathers. So, if you think of Swansea seafront, people drive along the front, and the air goes up and sits on the top of the hill, which is where some of the most socioeconomically deprived wards are. So, there's a real lack of social justice, even in the way that the wind works in that way. And so, the local authority will be asked to look at that and target it.
But we do need to have a lot more robust data than we have. We have a lot of data—and Janet read out quite a bit of it—but, actually, we don't have that much specific Wales data. We have a lot of UK data, we have a lot of England data, but we don't have a lot of Wales data. So, part of what this will do is it will allow us to deploy a whole series of measures across Wales to measure the data, to measure the air that we breathe. That's also the answer to one of your questions: that's how we'll know it's improved, because we will deploy a lot more tech, if you like, to be able to do that. And I've very specifically been looking to see how we can have a scale-uppable set of tech do that. So, we'll start with what we can afford, and then, as we can afford more, as we look to work with our local authorities, we'll put it in. So, you'd expect a local authority to be targeting those places it knows have the least good air quality.
The name matters because, first of all, we have to get the Llywydd to agree that we should introduce it, and, therefore, it has to be descriptive of what we're doing, and we did want to include soundscapes for all kinds of very relevant reasons that I think you agree with. And secondly, actually, it's part of a suite of legislation that goes with it. So, in terms of access to Welsh law, it is part of the environment Act series. It will be known as the clean air Act, inevitably, but a formal title fits it into the suite of Acts that people would be expected to look at. This is not a stand-alone piece of legislation; it amends other legislation and it fits into a suite. So, it's quite important that people don't expect to find everything they want in the one Act, they would need to look wider. And so, actually, I think it's important. But I think you're right, I think colloquially it will become known as the clean air Act.
I very much welcome this Bill, although I hope we'll be able to find a slightly more Daily Mirror-ish title for it. Asthma is the third biggest killer after cancer and heart disease, and I completely associate myself with everything that Delyth Jewell has said on this matter. My constituents living in congested roads going in and out of our capital city rarely choose to live there, and if they can't afford double glazing or have no access to fresher air at the back of their property, these properties probably should be condemned as not fit for human habitation.
I absolutely welcome the civil penalties that you will be able to put on people who are in idling stationary vehicles, particularly outside schools. I don't think this is quite such a big issue around hospitals, but if it is, then obviously it's just as reprehensible there. But it has to be part of a culture of ensuring that people are not taking their child right up to the doorstep of the school, but are doing the last quarter of a mile on foot or on a bike.
I wanted to know what plans there might be in these local air quality management regimes for how we're going to get articulated lorries in and out of city centres in a less environmentally harmful way, because they're hugely noisy, very difficult to get down small streets, and the last bit of the delivery needs to be done in electric vehicles—small electric vehicles—it seems to me. So, I very much look forward to the local—geographically local—action teams, because clearly, the measures that are going to be required in Cardiff are going to be different to those in Swansea or Maesteg or anywhere else. So, the devil is always in the detail on something like this, but at least we are now making a really good start on it, and I look forward to the legislation in due course.
Yes, thank you, Jenny. So, as I said, we have a national strategy, but we have a locally delivered and local plan, and in some cases, actually, a regional plan, where obviously Cardiff and its hinterland will need to work together, as will other cities across Wales. It's a bit more of a complicated piece. This isn't a stand-alone Act; I can't emphasise that enough. So, the national air quality strategy is established across three separate pieces of primary legislation. So, that's the Environment Act 1995, the Environment Act 2021 and this Bill. So, it's quite important that people understand that this doesn't stand alone. It is amending the other legislation to bring it up to date and to stiffen the duties therein. So, I think that's quite an important point there.
We do expect local authorities—. We will issue statutory guidance to the local authorities, and we do expect them to follow it. We are assisting them with resource, and then we expect them to produce their own air and soundscape plans—separately or together; the Bill deliberately allows them to do them together, if it's suitable to do that. And then that will target a range of ambient air quality.
The issue around particulate matter—I know Delyth brought it up as well—is a complex one. We don't have a safe level of particulate matter, we just need to get it down as low as possible. Zero would be great. So, there isn't a safe level. So, what we want to do is to clean up the air as much as we possibly can, and we want to have a Bill—I think Janet did make this point—that's suitable onwards into the future. So, we don't put it on the face of the Bill, we have regulations that allow us to upgrade the target as more data becomes available and, frankly, more ways of cleaning the air become available to us. So, we will expect quite a bit from our local authorities in putting the plans together.
And then the point you make about the kinds of noise and the kinds of emissions that we're looking at, that would be expected to be included in the local authority plan for that and what they do about it. So, you'll know already that deliveries are restricted to particular times of day, for example, idling vehicles should not be permitted, all that kind of stuff. So, we would expect each local authority to have a fit-for-purpose-for-its-own-area plan, and then that will sit inside a national strategy that will pull it all together. We have given ourselves powers to enforce that, but actually I can't imagine they'll ever be used. We work very well with our local authorities in this regard, and they're very anxious to do the right thing too.
Good afternoon, Minister. Yes, I join with many people in welcoming this. It is long overdue, but it's great to have the start. We know that air pollution cuts people's lives short, makes people, including our children, unwell, and is a huge strain on our health service as well as harming the environment. Just two issues from me, if I may, Minister.
One is that you talked about deploying the tech, in response to Delyth's points. I just wondered if you could just say a little bit more about how that then translates into practice in terms of these new powers, because as Jenny Rathbone has said, we want to see the detail, really, of how it's actually going to be enacted. So, that's my first point.
The second is that this isn't a Bill just for urban areas, which I'm sure you would echo. In rural areas like Mid and West Wales, we have the same challenges. In Crickhowell, in Welshpool on the high street, we also need a concentration of monitoring as well that will help people in rural areas to see that their air quality is being taken seriously. So, I do hope that I hear a little bit more about that, but thank you very much for all of your work and the work of your team as well. Diolch yn fawr iawn.
Diolch, Jane. Just to clarify, then, as I keep saying, we're amending existing legislation in this Bill as well as introducing new things, and the important part that we're amending is that, currently, local authorities are required to review air quality in the areas from time to time. What this is doing is putting a statutory duty on them to do that in a cycle, so that they have to do an annual review of air quality henceforth, so that they keep it up to date. That's one of the big changes, actually. And then what we're doing is deploying tech in association with local authorities at spots where they think it would be the most beneficial, and then I hope that we can deploy even more tech as time goes on, as we get the data in and we know where the data gaps are. So, it will roll out over time, but local authorities will already—. There are already many air monitoring stations out there, I hasten to say. We're not starting from nothing. So, what we're doing is enabling a further roll-out, and then that will reflect the local authority plan, the data will come back in, and we expect them to do an annual review of that, and so on. So, you'd expect an exponential increase in quality as that data comes in, and people can adjust their plans accordingly. I think that's quite important.
And as I say, there isn't a safe level. We're not trying to get it below a safe level, we're trying to clean it up as fast as possible. I think that's quite an important point as well. You're not trying to get to some barrier. We're not trying to measure it everywhere and say it definitely is below whatever. We're saying, 'Get this air to be as clean as humanly possible all over the place,' and obviously target the hot-spots first. And as the plans bed in and the statutory guidance goes out, it will snowball, effectively, won't it? That's the idea. We work very closely with our local authorities. They're very keen on this, and they've worked collaboratively with us to bring it in. That's across all administrations and so on; it's not political, this. We're all agreed on doing it. And then, tech changes, doesn't it, as well, so who knows what will be available in 10 years' time to do this, in the same way as the stuff that controls emissions from vehicles has changed in all of our lifetimes? We need a Bill that's flexible enough to be able to cope with that and not have to be re-legislating all the time. So, we need to learn those lessons as this Bill goes through the Senedd, to make sure it has that future flex that delivers us the outcomes on air quality that we all need, and I share.
Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'm genuinely a glass-half-full person here today. Can I thank the Minister for bringing forward the statement, but also for her engagement as well, not just with the cross-party group on a clean air Act for Wales, but all of the member organisations who are part of that and the Senedd Members, on a cross-party basis, who have been campaigning so long for this? It's unfair to name some of those, but people like Healthy Air Cymru, Asthma and Lung UK Cymru, Friends of the Earth, Living Streets Cymru and Wales Environment Link. So many people are on record as welcoming this step forward today, and it would be remiss of me not to mention the shy and unassuming Joseph Carter, who has been a one-man bandwagon, pushing this along and getting us all there.
So, I only have one, straightforward question, Dirprwy Llywydd, and it's this: within this renamed Bill—I wonder now whether we have to rename our cross-party group to reflect it—but within this renamed Bill, can I just ask is the Bill, in your opinion, Minister, ambitious enough? Does it deliver on the commitments made in the clean air plan and the clean air White Paper? And, just finally, in welcoming the intent to bring this Bill forward in consultation, in collaboration, in co-production, will she make sure she continues to engage with all those outside campaigners who've got lived experience as well, sometimes tragic, of the implications of air pollution?
Yes, thank you very much, Huw. So, it was a pleasure to come to the cross-party group, and we absolutely will continue to engage with everyone.
What we need is a Bill that's capable of delivering improved benefits over time. So, I do think it's ambitious enough for where we are now. It might not be ambitious enough for where we want to be in five years, and that's the point about future-proofing it, isn't it? So, to make sure that we can move with the times without having to come back for primary legislation all the time. It doesn't have targets on the face of the Bill, quite deliberately, because we want those targets to be able to be made stricter as time goes on. It would be very difficult, anyway, to hit on a target, and then I think there are some unintended consequences of that. So, it's that kind of thing. And as we go through scrutiny on the Bill, we can explore this in greater depth.
We want to be able to do some other things. So, we want the Bill to be enabling enough to be able to do that. We also want it to be able to work well with the other legislation in this field. This isn't a consolidation Bill. So, we need it to amend properly the other legislation, and we need that to be as flexible as possible, going forward, as well.
And then, primarily, we want it to place a duty on us to get the data on air quality in Wales, and that's one of the big pieces. So, it places a duty on Welsh Ministers to make arrangements for obtaining data about air quality in Wales as they consider appropriate to monitor progress being made towards meeting air quality targets set under the Bill. So, there we go—that's it, isn't it? So, it gives us the chance to improve what we have already. We haven't got very great data in this regard, actually, and it gives us a series of levers, if you like, that we can use to morph people's behaviour, and that's whether we're drivers or pedestrians, whether we're home owners or employees—we've all got a role to play in that.
We, obviously, work very closely with our industries here. We're actually quite lucky—we have a very clean steel industry, as clean as steel can be, and actually they're very engaged in that. We have other industries in Wales similarly engaged. This is about the air we breathe, this is about human health. But this is also about the climate and nature emergencies. It's about making a planet fit for all of the species, isn't it? So, I've got a lot of—. I think this Bill has a lot of ambition. I've got a lot of ambition for it, and as we go through the scrutiny process, I hope we can make it as futureproofed as possible.
Item 4 this afternoon is a statement by the Deputy Minister of Social Services—an update on the health and social services regional integration fund. I call the Deputy Minister, Julie Morgan.
The pressures on our health and care system continue to challenge us, and I remain hugely grateful for the tireless work and dedication of our health and social care delivery partners and, of course, their incredible workforce.
The Welsh Government wants people to be able to live their best lives as independently as possible in their own communities. The ability of health and social care organisations to work together as a whole system is essential as more people live for longer, sometimes managing multiple health conditions and with diverse care and support needs. I am committed to driving change and transformation and, to enable this, learning about best practice needs to be shared across Wales.
These are the reasons why, a year ago, alongside my ministerial colleagues, the Minister for Health and Social Services and the Deputy Minister for Mental Health and Well-being, I launched the new and ambitious five-year health and social care regional integration fund, as one of the ways the Welsh Government is supporting health and social care system transformation. Managed through regional partnership boards, over the last 12 months, nearly £145 million has been invested. Despite the significant system pressures experienced over the last 12 months, and an increasingly challenged financial landscape, RPBs have continued to build on the foundations of 'A Healthier Wales' and create an environment in which health and social care partners actively embrace and deliver service transformation.
The design of the regional integrational fund builds on the progress made under the previous integrated care fund and transformation fund, whilst also responding to the recommendations from the respective independent evaluations and Audit Wales reports. This vital learning has helped us to shape the fund, which includes several key features, such as a greater focus on six specific models of integrated care; a clear outcomes and measurement framework; opportunities to share learning through communities of practice; and a longer term investment horizon, making use of tapering and match funding levers to support mainstreaming and sustainability.
For our regional partnership boards, this first year has been one of transition, as we amalgamate previously separate funding streams to create greater alignment of resources, so that we maximise impact and reduce administrative burden. Each RPB has designed its regional integration fund investment plan and is making good progress towards testing and developing critical components of our six national models of care. As we increasingly evidence the best practice from across the country, this will be built into national service specifications that will ensure greater consistency of standards and experiences across Wales.
Whilst predominantly a longer term transformation programme, the fund is delivering for people now. Over the winter months, funded projects have contributed an additional 360 step-down beds to help people leave hospital quickly and safely and alleviate system pressures as part of our community care capacity-building programme. Another good example of the positive impact of the fund includes the West Glamorgan RPB's admission avoidance project. This project has been providing short-term, low-level community support for people, such as decluttering people's homes to avoid unnecessary falls at home, providing unpaid carer support and arranging home adaptations to enable people to stay at home for as long as possible.
The Cardiff and Vale RPB's Get Me Home Plus project is another good example of a fast-track pathway in which multidisciplinary teams work with patients requiring a more intensive packages of support and reablement at home. This project is known locally as 'the pink army', and it provides a single access and co-ordination point within the hospital for a range of community services that can provide a higher level of intermediate care for people at home, supporting earlier discharge until the right level of longer term support is arranged. These are just two of many regional integration fund projects that are helping people to live well at home, to avoid admissions to hospital, and supporting safe and quick discharge home.
Thank you very much, Deputy Minister, for your statement to the Senedd this afternoon.
I note that the programme for government outlines 10 well-being objectives that all RIF-funded activity should be mindful of and seek to contribute to, including providing effective, high-quality and sustainable healthcare. Well, that would be nice, wouldn't it, as it's been a long time since the NHS, under this Government, has been close to matching that description. But what seems a little odd is how regional integration fund cash needs to be mindful of all 10 objectives. The one I just mentioned should obviously be a part of the context, but others feel as if they speak to completely different areas of policy, like pushing towards a million Welsh speakers and embedding a response to the climate and nature emergency. Is there not a danger that by trying to tick all of these boxes, Deputy Minister, the implementation of this fund becomes subject to mission drift, as the chase to fulfil all the necessary requirements means it becomes less effective and watered down, effectively, at meeting the most important and relevant goals of all?
Indeed, integrating health and social care makes a lot of sense in theory. By bringing both together we get a far more efficient system that should prove to be cost-effective over time. However, as we've seen elsewhere on regional scales, COVID has thrown a big spanner into the works, making it incredibly difficult for the practice to live up to that theory. This is most evident in delayed discharges. While this aims to make the whole health and social care system smoother, without addressing this issue it will simply be a case of throwing more good money after bad. Finding the right reform is not easy, but is the Minister really confident that this regional integration fund will actually mean change or will it be more of the same?
Finally, the regional integration fund obviously engages with the Labour and Plaid policy ambition of a national care service. If this fund is as effective as the Minister believes it can be and should be, is there a need for such a national service? Is a national care service even achievable? There is supposed to be an integration plan ready by the end of this year, but its actual implementation won't happen overnight. With less than half of the Senedd term left to run, is it not the case that the regional integration fund is actually the end goal here? Because a national care service will never see the light of day under this Welsh Government. Thank you very much.
I thank Gareth for those questions. Certainly, I said in the speech I made that we had established six national models of integrated care, and those are the models that the regional integration fund are working to. Those are: preventative community co-ordination; complex care closer to home; promoting good emotional health and well-being; therapeutic support for looked-after children and helping families to stay together; home from hospital; and accommodation-based solutions. So, we're concentrating the money that we're putting into the RIF on those six areas, and in the first year of the RIF, I think we've seen very promising results. Certainly, I don't think that some of the things that he mentioned are in conflict with those aims, such as a million Welsh speakers; I think that is a great advantage to the sort of work that we are doing here, and certainly is the Wales that we want to see. So, I don't see any conflict there at all.
We are integrating health and social care, and the regional boards are where we actually have a place where health and social care are at the table. So, it is actually making decisions jointly as well as other elements being there, such as housing, with the third sector and carers represented. So, it is the place where you can make the best integrated decisions.
On delayed discharges, we've worked all the winter trying to tackle the issue of the shortage that we do have of social care workers and the issues that that has caused with delaying people coming from hospital. It does look as if those delayed discharges are now going down. The worst of the winter, we hope, is over, and the delayed discharges are going down. But a huge effort was made to create community capacity, and the regional integration fund played a major role in that.
In terms of a national care service, that is the joint ambition of Labour and Plaid Cymru, and we're working together in the co-operation agreement to make that happen. We will be announcing an implementation plan by the end of this year, where I hope we will see staged proposals to reaching a national care service. The regional integration fund is bringing those elements together now, and is delivering now, but our ultimate plan is for a national care service.
May I echo the comments of the Deputy Minister in terms of our thanks to the health and care workforce for their tireless work? Thank you for today’s statement. There are very important principles here that we can all hopefully support, on the importance of supporting people to live independently in their communities and the need to transform services in a meaningful way to allow that to happen. This fund, of course, replaces the integrated care fund, which took the place of the intermediate care fund, if I’m right, which was subject to an agreement many years ago between Plaid Cymru and the Government. So, there are principles here that are ongoing and are being developed.
The question is to what extent are we seeing the kind of transformation that is needed. To be fair, it’s at quite an early stage still. The Minister has described this as a period when we move into a new modus operandi, but time is short, of course. We do need to see that transformation actually happening. With the six models of integrated care, for example, I would be grateful if the Minister could provide us with an update on the kind of spending profile that she anticipates. In terms of delivering against those principles, how will revenue and capital funding, which is scarce, be spent on delivering the new six models that are being developed?
For the second question I have, I don’t apologise for turning once again to the need for a revolution in attitudes in terms of preventative care, to make us a healthier nation and to get people to prepare to live independently within their communities over the long term. Plaid Cymru published five action points for health and care recently and that preventative element was one of the five points. In launching this fund last year, the Minister said that preventative community solutions were already being developed. Can the Minister, therefore, provide us with an update on how this fund is being used to develop that preventative element, which is so crucially important? Because unless we can tackle the issue of the preventative, we won’t be able to resolve the pressures on health and care services ultimately, and we will tend to go around in circles in such a scenario.
Thank you very much, Rhun, for those questions and comments. This certainly does replace the ICF and the transformation fund. It is a consolidation and is making sure that some of these ideas and projects that have been so successful are moving towards consolidation, because I think the main thing we have to try to do is to mainstream these projects. I think I can reassure you that some of them have been transformational, but what we have to do now is to move beyond that and to make them embedded so that they're right throughout the whole of the system. We are learning from them. There are communities of practice, communities looking at each different area that we're looking at. We're trying to make absolutely sure that these are not just isolated projects, but are projects that are shared throughout Wales.
In terms of the spending, well, last year's spending was nearly £145 million, which is a large amount of money that we're putting in, and we're putting that in for five years. The largest percentage of that money was spent on community capacity building, and three of the six models were on that. So, we had, for example, home from hospital—18 per cent of the funding went on that; community-based care, prevention and community co-ordination—27 per cent. I think, on those sorts of projects, about 60 per cent was spent on that. So that was, basically, building up the capacity, the community care capacity, which I think is very crucial.
And a lot of it is preventative, because the more that we can support people at home to live independent lives, to live successfully, that's where we will prevent the need for having to go into hospital, where people do become weaker, and it's more difficult to get people home. So, we have got ambitious plans to develop this preventative work in the community much more, and, of course, we do want to move towards a national care service, where we will build upon all this work that is actually being done now.
Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Now, Deputy Minister, you touched upon, in your statement today, the sharing of good practice. So, I wondered if you can give us, or perhaps let us know where you think that health and social care is working best in Wales—tell us the health boards or the regional partnership boards that are doing the best, and also, give us a sense of where you think, or which health boards need to up their game. Perhaps it would be useful to get that sense from you.
And whilst we're on health boards, of course, with regard to Betsi Cadwaladr health board, as we know, returning to special measures under direct control of the Government, can I get a sense there of whether there's going to be an acceleration of work with regard to the integration of health and social care, or is it the opposite? Is it the fact that there are so many other hurdles to overcome that this will be less of a priority?
I thank Russell George very much for those questions. We've got good examples all over Wales, so I'm not going to say one health board is outstanding and another one isn't, because I've got a list of project examples here from, as I say, right across Wales. Well, in north Wales, of course, there's the iCAN project, which tries to support people with mental health difficulties. And many of these support activities are delivered by third sector providers, with volunteers, and community hub staff providing mental well-being support, with a plan to place people in GP surgeries to try and address these issues. So, that's a very good example in north Wales, and, certainly, we wouldn't want—. There is no question of stopping these sorts of things happening because Betsi Cadwaladr has gone into special measures. It's absolutely crucial that we work on the integration of health and social care throughout the whole of Wales.
And I've got examples, as I say, of excellent projects here throughout the whole of Wales. And we certainly wouldn't want anything to stop the development of those projects because of any difficulties in any local health board.
I thank the Deputy Minister. Item 5 is next, and that's a statement by the Minister for Education and the Welsh Language on our national mission. And I call on the Minister, Jeremy Miles.
Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. Our national mission action plan was published in 2017. Since that time, we have made great strides in education. Amongst many other things, we are rolling out the Curriculum for Wales, implementing a new additional learning needs system, and establishing the commission for tertiary education and research. I am proud of what we have achieved, but we must continue to look ahead and plan for the future. So, I am very pleased to introduce our new road map for education—high standards and aspirations for all. This sets out our priorities for education, and the timetable for delivery this Senedd term.
For the first time, we are setting out a coherent and cohesive road map, which covers the breadth of education in and for Wales, from early years to post-16 and beyond, because our education system should span a lifetime of learning.
Dirprwy Lywydd, it's designed to be a useful tool for practitioners, providing a timeline for our plans and coherence across the portfolio. Our ambitions for education are unchanged: our national mission is to achieve high standards and aspirations for all, and we will do this by tackling the impact of poverty on educational attainment and supporting every learner. The document doesn't simply address what I see are the issues in education. By speaking to teachers and support staff, lecturers and our learners, I know that they are keen to ensure well-being, equity and diversity in education. We've also drawn on the experience and expertise of other nations and organisations, gleaning best practice and ideas from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Atlantic Rim Collaboratory, and plans from Estonia, Ireland, New Zealand, and others. And I am determined not to allow the pandemic and any potential long-term consequences to compound the effects of poverty on educational outcomes. The Welsh Government will commit to this.
We will ensure equity of outcomes for all children and young people in education. With the objectives and actions laid out in this document, I believe that we will achieve this. The marker of an equitable and excellent system is that every learner and citizen benefits from a broad and balanced curriculum. This is embodied in the Curriculum for Wales and its four purposes. The road map we are publishing now highlights our joint priorities to ensure the success, high standards and well-being of all learners. It sets out the six objectives we believe will help us achieve those priorities. These are: learning for life; breaking down barriers; a positive education for everyone; high-quality teaching and leadership; community-based learning; and Cymraeg for all.
This cannot be achieved by Government alone. We will work with providers and employers, and empower learners and communities to develop strong relationships with education providers. We will guarantee career-long professional learning and support for all staff, and promote well-being and resilience for everyone in education. We also share the responsibility of ensuring a prosperous future for our language. I believe that schools and the wider education system are our most effective tool for creating new speakers and re-engaging learners. With local authority Welsh in education strategic plans, we have a firm basis for planning growth in the language for the next decade. We will continue to innovate in the use of digital technology, as it's a crucial tool in promoting bilingualism, supporting lifelong learning, and raising attainment.
Thank you, Minister, for bringing forward today's statement—our national mission. As we know, the Welsh Government launched their education national mission back in 2017, which had big aspirations for the people of Wales. The aim of the national mission was to raise standards, reduce the attainment gap and deliver an education system that is a source of national pride and confidence. On these sides of the benches, we share this aspiration wholeheartedly and want to see the best educational outcomes for the people of Wales, and, as you state in your statement, Minister, we must achieve high standards and aspirations for all. In addition to this, we support the need to ensure equity of outcomes for all children and young people in education, which is also raised in your statement today.
The first point that I'd like to raise today, Minister, is that, when we look closer at educational standards in Wales, we continue to lag behind our counterparts in England. Since this national mission was announced, we have continued to see the attainment gap widen, whilst the Programme for International Student Assessment rankings show that educational standards in Wales are not rising quickly enough. Therefore, Minister, what assurances can you give that, going forward, we will see more positive outcomes from your national mission, resulting in better education outcomes for the people of Wales?
Secondly, Minister, concern on these sides of the benches has been the roll-out of the new Curriculum for Wales. On these sides of the benches, we believe that this new curriculum was rushed out too quickly and should have been delayed. In light of this, what assessment have you made of the roll-out of this curriculum, and were there any lessons to have been learnt?
Thirdly, Minister, a key failure that we see on these sides of the benches is the Welsh Government's attempted reforms regarding additional learning needs. Many would argue that these reforms have not been successful. Regretfully, many children across Wales are being identified as having additional learning needs later than they should be. This results in children being placed on long waiting lists before actually having access to schools that provide for special educational needs and disability, only then for those same schools to state that they do not have the funding resources necessary to deliver adequate tuition for pupils with additional learning needs. Therefore, Minister, going forward, what guarantee can you give that this national mission programme will ensure that those with additional learning needs, along with their families, receive the help and support that they deserve?
I thank the Member for his questions. He will know from my statement and from other statements that I have made that, closing the attainment gap between those students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers is a key priority for me, as I just outlined in the statement. He somewhat misrepresents the experience in relation to the attainment gap since the publication of the national mission. Actually, there was progress at a number of cohort points, which, unfortunately, the experience of COVID has halted, and in some cases, reversed. The impact of COVID has been similar in different parts of the UK, and I daresay, probably internationally as well. But what he will have seen in the statements that I made last year and the updates I've given since then—and he will be aware that I'm giving an update to the Chamber next week in relation to our policy initiatives in this area—is a whole-system approach to focusing on making sure that every single learner, regardless of their background, has the same access to an excellent education and is encouraged to have not only high standards, but also high aspirations.
He refers to PISA. He will know that the 2022 PISA results will be a baseline from which we can review trends going forward. It's one part of a much broader programme of monitoring and evaluation; an important part, no doubt, but only one part of that. We are looking at how we measure success across the system, as he will know, in terms of what we evaluate, and I set out our approach to that and the next steps that we are taking to that, to the Senedd at the end of January, as he will be aware.
He may have wanted the Curriculum for Wales to be delayed; I think that underestimates the enthusiasm and commitment that schools and teachers and teaching assistants have for the curriculum right across Wales. He will know that we are about to debate, later on this afternoon, the Estyn report for 2021-22, and he will know from having read that, no doubt, that Estyn provides an assessment of the roll-out of the Curriculum for Wales and demonstrates good practice and commitment in relation to doing that. Understandably, there is a level of variation across the system that is generally not isolated in relation to curriculum roll-out, but relates to other features that some schools have also found challenging as well, and those schools, as he will know, will be getting specialist support in relation to those particular areas.
Similarly, in relation to the roll-out of the additional learning needs reforms, which have been, I think, very, very widely welcomed, obviously introducing a reform of such magnitude, which involves such change across the system—there is a huge amount of effort that practitioners and organisations are making in order to ensure those reforms are a success, and I pay tribute to them for the incredible work and commitment that they are investing in this work. We have substantially increased the funding available to schools, as he will be aware, both from a capital and revenue point of view, in order to help smooth the transition, and I’ll be making announcements in the coming days about further support that we intend to provide for practitioners in order to make sure that the ALN reforms are a success for each individual learner, as we need them to be.
Thank you, Minister, for the statement this afternoon. Certainly, you’ll get our full support in terms of the aspiration in securing high standards and aspirations for all. And certainly, one of the things that we have seen, and you’ve already mentioned this, is that we do have to acknowledge the problems that do arise from COVID, and the impact that that is having since the launch in 2017. One of the things that concerns me, as we haven’t had an independent inquiry into COVID here in Wales specifically, is, clearly, in Scotland they’re looking at the impact of COVID on education, and children and young people have been a big part of that, and I do think that we don’t fully understand the full picture here in Wales. Some work has been done, but not to the same extent.
I think we’re still seeing the impact of COVID in many of our schools now. General practitioners, for example, speak of the concerns that they have in terms of children and young people who aren’t attending school, and the impact that that has, for all sorts of reasons. It can be because of mental health problems that were exacerbated during COVID, and then they don’t feel comfortable in going back to school. Perhaps they haven’t received support in terms of additional learning needs, and have missed out there. There might be a whole host of reasons, and they do have grave concerns, specifically in terms of the most vulnerable people in our communities, and the impact that not going to school will have.
You will also be aware of the inquiry carried out by the Children, Young People, and Education Committee in terms of pupil absence, and I do think that it’s one thing, what we can do within schools to support pupils in school, but, as the children’s commissioner has mentioned, we do have to recognise that attendance levels aren’t back to where they were pre COVID, and that it’s still a concern that many see school as being optional, and also we’re seeing that the cost-of-living crisis is a barrier for some in actually getting to school. We’ve had so much evidence from people saying that they can’t afford the bus fare, and that there are a whole host of reasons why our most vulnerable pupils and learners are missing out on going to school in the first place. So, whilst recognising the excellent work that is happening in our schools, I think the major question that we still haven’t answered yet is: how do we ensure that those attendance levels are raised and that we do get the pupils in school to take advantage of these proposals? Certainly, in terms of some elements here in closing the gap, what I would ask is: we do have plans in place, but how are we going to deliver against those plans if there are still so many barriers preventing learners from being in school?
Thank you very much to the Member for those questions and for listing the challenges. I’m sure she is eager too to celebrate the successes in our education system and all of the work being done in our classrooms on a daily basis to provide the best possible education for our young people. I’m sure that she would acknowledge that too.
In terms of her specific questions, I'll do my best to respond to at least some of them. The impact of COVID on schools, of course, is significant. The Estyn report that we will be discussing later on this afternoon gives an analysis of some of the impacts on our schools.
We have succeeded in the coming financial year in increasing what we had intended to contribute to the fund that supports schools to deal with the impacts of COVID. We were expecting to have to decrease that, but, because the impact was so significant, we have been able to maintain that fund, and it's clear from the analyses that have been done across the United Kingdom that the funding and the ways of spending that money that we have provided here in Wales is on the more generous end of the scale with regard to the interventions across the UK, and that they have been invested in the most progressive ways.
In terms of attendance, this is a significant challenge, as the Member said in her question. She will know about the work that we have done in terms of the review by Meilyr Rowlands to look at what more we can do. As part of that, we are updating the requirements and the guidance for schools with regard to how to tackle that. The current threshold for further support for families where children are absent is higher than perhaps it should be in the context that we are currently working in. So, one of the things that we hope to do is lower that threshold before we provide additional support for families.
She'll see that we have announced recently funding to support local authorities to fund officers to work with families to encourage them to send their children back to school and to work with the children themselves to ensure that the relationship is renewed and to attract young people back to school after a period that has been very difficult for them. So, it’s a relationship of trust and tailored support, and I think that that’s the way of ensuring and delivering that, but additional support is needed by the system for that, and that’s the purpose of the investment that I've described.
In terms of post-16 provision, that’s an important element. I will say that the intention of this document isn’t to list every policy that the Government is committed to, but to give a timetable for the main things that have a requirement of the profession, if you will. But she will be aware, from the work that we have done jointly with Plaid Cymru as part of the co-operation agreement, that significant investment has been made into the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol. One element of the coleg's work that is so valuable is what they do to increase the provision of apprenticeships through the medium of Welsh, but, of course, there is more to do in that regard too.
Thank you, Minister, for your statement. There are a couple of things that I'd like to pick up on. Firstly, it was really good to welcome you to Perthcelyn Community Primary School in Mountain Ash a few weeks ago. The school has received just over £66,000 in Welsh Government funding this year for a variety of external improvements. Ensuring the development of sustainable and welcoming learning environments for all is a key objective for Welsh Government, so how do you see this aligning with and being incorporated into the national mission?
There was also a chance at Perthcelyn to see some of the excellent work the school does around tackling the impact of deprivation, with its local area being noted as being affected by deep-rooted deprivation, according to the Welsh index of multiple deprivation. The Welsh Government has put in place lots of positive interventions to help with the impact of poverty, so how are you ensuring that work to promote equality of outcome is at the core of the mission?
Finally, I note your comments about ensuring a prosperous future for the Welsh language. With that being the case, it's good to note that the Welsh Government funded £12 million—[Inaudible.]—extension—[Inaudible.]—for pupils and grow Welsh language provision. What other measures is the Welsh Government taking to nurture Welsh-medium and bilingual provision?
I thank the Member for her questions. I didn't quite catch the entirety of the last question, but I think I had the thrust of it, so I will do my best to respond to it. Thank you, firstly, for inviting me to attend, with her, Perthcelyn school. I found it an incredibly inspiring visit, and meeting the head and the pupils and some of the staff there, I saw a school that was committed to giving each individual learner the best possible start in life, and that is what we want for all our children in Wales.
She's right, of course, to say that the school has benefited from capital investment to what is already a very beautifully designed school, if I may say, and with a focus on sustainability. When I was at the school, I was able to announce a package of £60 million—£50 million for schools, £10 million for colleges—to improve sustainability, energy efficiency and their contribution to the net-zero ambitions that we have. They are fundamental to our national mission.
She will know that all new school investments funded through the sustainable communities for learning programme from 2022 onwards will be a net-zero school, which is very important. I hope to be saying in the next few days something more about our sustainable schools challenge, which she will remember was the opportunity for authorities to bid for funding for schools to be designed and constructed using natural materials, and designed—importantly, from the point of view of her question—with learners at the heart, and that the learners' role in helping to design the school is a curriculum opportunity. So, there's a holistic way in which commitment to sustainability can be at the heart of our curriculum, and any of us who visit schools in our constituencies will know just how passionate young people are about issues around sustainability, addressing climate change, and that manifests itself in a range of ways.
She asked about the commitment to equality of outcome, and I just want to emphasise how important it is that we redouble our efforts, right across our education system, to make sure that every learner's journey is one of equity as well as excellence. I recently appointed, as I think she will know, a group of attainment champions who've been working with schools across Wales to share best practice and to learn from one another around strategies to effectively tackle the impact of poverty on attainment, and I’m very excited about the potential of this to help us spread best practice throughout our education system. There isn’t a head in Wales who isn’t committed to giving every single learner in their charge the best possible start in life, but some find that harder than others for different reasons, and they’re often very understandable reasons. Our responsibility is to make sure that we support them to have the best access to the resources and the guidance that they need to deliver that for their young people.
Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd, and thank you for your statement, Minister. In your statement, you make a great deal of reference to the central role of reforms in the post-16 sector to the national vision for education, and we in Plaid Cymru were pleased that the steps to establish the commission for tertiary education and research was part of our co-operation agreement with the Government. I asked you last week to explain the delay in terms of appointing a chief executive to the new commission, because a chair and vice-chair had been in place for some months now, but I didn’t get a clear response, and the closing date for that particular post was back in November. Given the great importance of the role in shaping the form and vision of the new commission, which—in your words—will steer the whole-system approach that you want to see in terms of tertiary education, which will help to reduce educational inequalities and expand opportunities and raise standards, will you confirm when we will have an announcement on the appointment of a new chief executive, or will you explain why that hasn’t yet been possible?
I agree with the Member on the important role of the commission and of the vision that we share in terms of the contribution of the commission to reforming post-16 education in all parts of Wales, and I will refer her to the response that I gave last week on the specific question that she’s asked.
Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I am pleased to have this opportunity to share a significant progress update on the series of actions we are taking as part of the Welsh building safety programme. There are six strands to my update today, ranging from our work in making developers responsible for putting right the issues with buildings they have constructed, to taking forward work to remediate orphan buildings ourselves as a Government, where no developer can be made responsible. Together with Plaid Cymru, I am committed to addressing building safety in Wales. Our ambitious programme will ensure residents can feel safe and secure in their homes.
Dirprwy Lywydd, I have always maintained the position that the industry should step up to their responsibilities in matters of fire safety. Developers should put right fire safety faults at their own cost, or risk their professional reputation and their ability to operate in Wales in future. The first of these strands is the legally binding developers’ pact. In October, I announced 11 developers had signed up to the developers’ pact. The pact represents a public commitment of their intention to address fire safety issues in buildings they have developed over the last 30 years. Our pact is underpinned by legally binding documentation that sets out our expectations in detail. Today, I'm am pleased to confirm that the following developers have signed this documentation in Wales: Redrow, Lovell, Vistry, Countryside Partnerships, Persimmon, and McCarthy Stone. I'm also pleased that Taylor Wimpey, Crest Nicholson and Barratt Homes have also confirmed their intent to sign. I have made clear I will take every opportunity, including legislation and considering prohibitions on development, to ensure developers step up to their responsibilities. This remains the case.
Dirprwy Lywydd, I am also determined to take every opportunity I can to protect leaseholders. That is why I have provided direct funding for surveys to be carried out, using a consultant procured by the Welsh Government. This means we have independent and consistent reporting, which sets out where responsibilities for any fire safety issues lie. That is why we do not want to limit leaseholder liability. We do not want leaseholders to have to pay at all for something that is not their fault. It is my intention that, where a genuine dispute arises, the Welsh Government will intervene, rather than have these costs fall to leaseholders. In our view, that is the fair way, that is the Welsh way. The Welsh Government approach is that we will do everything in our power to support leaseholders.
Also, here in Wales, our fund is not limited to buildings with unsafe cladding. The Grenfell fire tragedy highlighted the wider issue of fire safety more generally in high-rise buildings. We invited expressions of interest from all responsible persons for all residential buildings of 11m or over in height. However, on the issue of cladding, all high-rise buildings with known aluminium composite material—or ACM cladding, as it's known—issues in Wales have either been corrected or are in the process of being corrected. We have a rolling programme of surveys. To date, 137 have been completed and 61 are being progressed with our contractors. I continue to encourage responsible persons to submit an expression of interest if they have not already done so. This is the starting point for accessing support from the Welsh Government.
Dirprwy Lywydd, the second strand is developer loans. I want to ensure that any reasons for delay are minimised and developers are able to carry out works as swiftly as possible. So, today the Welsh Government has approved a £20 million developer loan scheme. The scheme will provide loans over a period of up to five years for developers. The aim of this loan is: to reduce the number of medium and high-rise residential buildings blighted by fire safety issues; to provide assurance to leaseholders that works will be undertaken as swiftly as possible; to enable reductions in service charges and insurance costs; and to remove barriers so that leaseholders can access financial products such as mortgages.
The developer loan scheme is critical in taking our work in Wales forward at pace. The loans will be available for developers who have signed up to our legally binding documentation, allowing them to accelerate their works to address fire safety, so we can end the suffering of leaseholders in Wales. Let me be clear, Dirprwy Lywydd, that this is a loan not a grant and developers who wish to take advantage of this offer will rightly be expected to pay back every penny of funding to the public purse within five years.
Dirprwy Lywydd, the third strand is orphan buildings. There remains the question of those orphan buildings where the developer is unknown or has ceased trading. In my written statement in January, I announced that I had agreed to an initial cohort of six such buildings to be remediated. I am pleased to announce today that I have extended this initial cohort of buildings. We will now be taking forward 28 buildings, which represents all eligible applications for our initial phase of work. For all 28 buildings, the developer has either ceased trading, is unknown, or the building was developed over 30 years ago. Responsible owners of the buildings are being contacted to go through next steps and arrangements for work plans to be prepared and the works to be undertaken. This will form part of the second phase of the Welsh building safety fund—£375 million of Welsh Government money put in place as part of the co-operation agreement with Plaid Cymru, which will be used to address fire-safety issues, including remediating the orphan buildings.
Minister, can I thank you again for bringing forward this statement, in particular the fact that it's come forward a lot sooner than it was indicated? We were expecting a statement—I wouldn't even say of this nature—but we were expecting to hear something from you between Easter and summer, so the fact you've come forward today with it, I think, will provide much reassurance to a lot of tenants and leaseholders.
Regarding the legally binding developers' pact, it's actually good to hear that 11 developers have signed up. You say you're pleased that Persimmon, Taylor Wimpey, Crest Nicholson and Barratt have also confirmed their intent to sign. I'm a great believer that 'intent to sign' is not worth the paper it's not written on, so I suppose really what I'm asking today is: what steps are you taking to ensure that they sign up, and quickly?
You mentioned that you want to take every opportunity to protect leaseholders. You'll be aware that your response to my spokesperson's questions last week have really—. I don't like to use the word 'ignited', but it has, and inflamed a situation where private leaseholders felt they were being left behind with the numbers of millions that have been spent in the rented social sector on remediation. This was a heart-rending message that was on Twitter the other day, and I know that you follow Twitter:
'Dear @JulieJamesMS my flat is also my home. The place where I am meant to rest & fell safe. It is NOT an "investment" to me. My partner and I worked 4 jobs between us to afford it! #EndOurCladdingScandal'.
We've had similar other messages coming in, saying, 'You have to be more in terms of equality,' 'You should really be treating all equally.' Last week, you made the point that it was because it was someone's investment that it wasn't necessarily the same as being in the rented social sector. A house that is not safe to live in—to me, it doesn't matter whether it's rented, social, or whether it's owner owned, a private leaseholder.
The orphan buildings have been worrying me, where the developer is unknown or has ceased trading. Where you had agreed to an initial cohort of six buildings, that's increased now to 28 buildings, and you mentioned that responsible owners of the buildings are being contacted to go through the next step. The Welsh building safety fund: £375 million of Welsh Government money. I'm still trying to ascertain how much of that money you've spent already and what is left to spend.
You move on to progress in the social sector, and that's not where my concerns are.
Thank you, Janet. The 'intent to sign' part is merely that the companies in question have to get the permission of holding company boards. We have letters saying they intend to sign. It is actually worth the paper it's written on, and I do expect them to sign formally very shortly. But they have to go through a board process in order to do that. So, that just is what it is. But they are signed up and they will do the work. So, I don't think people should worry about that bit of it.
In terms of the private sector leaseholders, I just don't know how to explain this to you. You've just said the social sector is not where you're concerns are. I'm sure that's not what you meant. There is a real difference in being able to identify the owner and responsible person of a building in the social sector compared to the private sector. There is a real difference. The difference is really straightforward to understand. The registered social landlord is there on the record, they are easy to contact, we fund them, and there is a mechanism in place. It is easy. In the private sector, it is very complicated indeed. I understand entirely that people might be working four jobs to keep their home, and I have every sympathy with that. I don't want them to lose their equity. But it is the equity that we're discussing, because we could just land charge it all and use that as the funding. I don't want to do that. I am trying to protect the hard-worked-for investment of the private sector leaseholders. But the idea that there's not a complexity, because it suits people to say so, is just nonsense. Each building is different. Each responsible person is different. Each managing agent is different. The leases are different. The repair obligations are different. Each building is different. There's no getting away from that, and that's the difference. [Interruption.] That's the difference.
You asked me specifically again about sections 116 to 125. Sections 116 to 125 are specifically written for the building safety regime in England, which is not the same as here. So, you can't just lift them up and put them down here, even if you wanted to. But just to be clear, I don't want to. Those sections limit the amount of money that the leaseholders are liable to pay. That means they are liable to pay some money. I have never ever wanted the leaseholders to be liable to pay anything at all. We have always taken the position here that residents in medium and high-rise buildings should not have to pay for these works. We are doing it differently here. I don't need to give those residents a right to sue somebody and get stuck in the courts. Your own evidence showed that they were spending millions on litigation. I don't want people to be in that position. We are substituting the Welsh Government into that position, so if the developer doesn't do what they're supposed to do, we will be the people who take the legal risk. I think that's better. I make absolutely no excuse for that. I have no intention of bringing in sections here that would give leaseholders fewer rights than we are intending to give them. The Welsh Government will take the risk, not the leaseholders. I just don't know how to make that any clearer to you.
I thank the Minister for today’s statement. It's an important statement that we on these benches welcome, and it will mean that we see a major step being taken forward to tackle this very serious problem. It's good to see the fruit of the agreement between Plaid Cymru and the Government on this work making a positive contribution to people's everyday lives.
For far too long we have seen a culture of corner cutting by major developers at the expense of public safety. This came to the fore in the evidence recently heard by the Local Government and Housing Committee, which is looking at building safety, and the residents of buildings in Cardiff and Swansea clearly demonstrating the basic failings in some of those buildings, such as Celestia and Altamar. But on top of this poor building work, the shadow cast by Grenfell has further darkened the lives of every one of these residents. We need to show that large corporations cannot have free rein to operate as they wish for personal gain, and we must see a culture change to safeguard people today and tomorrow.
We know that there are 171 buildings with safety concerns related to them, including the 28 orphan buildings that you have mentioned today that you will look to remedy. I wonder whether the Minister therefore can give us an idea of the percentage of buildings outwith the scope of today’s statement and confirm what work is being done on these and the next steps for residents in these buildings, please. While this statement is to be welcomed very warmly, the truth is that until the remedial work has been completed to make these buildings safe, the residents will continue to live in fear. The announcement with regard to borrowing is to be welcomed. I would, therefore, like to ask the Minister when we can expect to reach a point where every building will be safe for residents without them or the owners having to pay for the work. What is the timetable?
As I mentioned earlier, the current situation has enabled developers to cut corners leading to serious implications for people’s health and safety. It is shameful that some developers have continued to refuse to take part voluntarily alongside the Government in this important work. Shame on them. I support the Minister when she says that she will look into every option, including amending legislation and preventing further developments to ensure that these developers live up to their responsibilities. So, will the Minister give further details on these options, please, and confirm whether she is looking at blocking developments if an irresponsible developer refuses to co-operate with the Government? Will the Minister confirm how many developers have declined to take part to date or have not expressed their willingness to enter into discussions with the Government?
Thanks very much for that series of questions. In terms of other buildings, do you mean buildings under 11m? Is that what you meant? Yes. We aren't doing anything about that at the moment, because we need to make sure that those in the higher risk buildings, who are the ones who would have most difficulty in escaping, for example, are remediated first. Once we've done that, we will turn our attention to the other buildings. But I will say that, as we go through this process with the developers, we have encouraged the developers and received good feedback from the developers that they will remediate all of their buildings, not just the ones that are over height. I can't say that it applies to houses, I must say, but buildings in multiple occupation, so blocks of sorts—we have had that discussion. But we will turn our attention to that next. Bite-size chunks is where we've gone. And it has been based on a risk analysis; we have to start somewhere.
All the developers that we are aware of who have developments in Wales have now signed up, or have indicated their intent to sign and are going through their internal processes in order to do it. We have, occasionally—there's one at the moment; I won't name them—come across ones that thought they didn't have any buildings in Wales, and, actually, we think we've now found one that should. But I'm pretty sure they will sign up, if we can establish that they're responsible for the building and it isn't an orphan building. It'll be one or the other. Either way, the people in the building will get the remediation they want. I haven't got anyone refusing to sign, so that's good. That's very good.
The big issue for us now will be the amount of supply chain and workforce that is necessary to get this to happen, and that's why we're very keen to work with them in terms of cash flow. That's the developer loans I've just introduced. I don't want them to not be able to do it because there's a cash-flow issue. And also in terms of supply-chain issues and workforce issues, we don't want them all competing with each other and driving the prices up and so on. So, I actually think the Government has a pretty pivotal role in making sure that there's a good supply of buildings coming forward. We know which ones need what doing to them now. The legal documentation does underpin that. I'm not going to go through all of the various bits of the legal documentation, but it's robust, there's a dispute mechanism, as you'd expect, and ultimately they will end up in the courts if they don't do as we ask. We've made that extremely clear and plain.
It's in these people's interests now, isn't it, to get this work done, because let's face it, their reputation is trashed. Actually, they're quite anxious to get their reputations back and for people not to say, 'My goodness, I'm not buying that' because it was built by whoever. That isn't a good place for them to be. They've all signed up to various codes of practice, they've signed up to the new homes ombudsman. They're anxious to get themselves back into a good business footing, and rightly so—they should be ashamed of how they got themselves into this situation. I'm not anticipating any real difficulty other than the supply chain and suitably skilled craftsperson issues. We will work with the developers to make sure we have that supply chain under way and that we have a pipeline of activity that allows people to take advantage of that in the right way, and that those are firms who have the skilled workforce necessary to put right the wrongs of the past, so that we can be sure that they now have done the remediation in the right way.
I'm very pleased we're having this statement today. As the Minister is aware, it's been a cause of concern to my constituents living in Altamar and South Quay, and it's generated many e-mails and requests on the business statement from me for a long period of time. I welcome the statement today and the progress being made with the developers. Everyone should feel safe and secure in their home. I think that it is a problem that we have to say that, because it's something that we all take for granted.
I welcome the commitment that the Welsh Government will do everything in their power to support leaseholders. I have two questions, and I'm happy to have a written answer on both, because they're getting fairly detailed. Is South Quay in SA1, which was built by Carillion, on your list of orphan buildings? And, as of 20 March, I am told by the Altamar management company that Bellway will not engage with them. Can the Minister intervene or explain how Altamar management can get Bellway to engage with them?
Thank you, Mike. I will write back to you on the very specific points you made. It's worth doing that because I think it's more of a detailed answer than here. But just to be really clear, buildings that don't have anybody responsible left for them standing—so, the developer and everybody else has gone out of business; Carillion is a very good example of that—will, as long as they've put in an expression of interest to be included in the list, and I can't know off the top of my head, I'm afraid, whether the building in question has or hasn't. But I'll write back to you on both points.
Thank you so much for this statement, and following on from what Janet said, I do welcome it coming so quickly—thank you so much for that, Minister. I just, really, want to concentrate on developers in the short time that I have, and we've heard from my colleague, Mabon ap Gwynfor about some of the issues that I wanted to cover. But I just wondered what range of sanctions was available to non-compliant developers as we go forward. They have had years, literally years, to step up to the plate and they haven't, and it has come at considerable cost to people who are living in these blocks of flats. So, I think my sympathy is totally stretched when it comes to thinking that they can be given any more latitude here. So, can I ask you what sanctions are going to be available to non-compliant developers? For example, are you looking at the option of barring them from building any further developments within Wales, and how would that happen?
And secondly, I understand that there are some developers who are involved in court action against affected leaseholders, and therefore they seem to be in a place where they are agreeing to one thing but still continuing with court action against some of their leaseholders. So, it is just wanting a little bit more detail, if I may, Minister, in terms of how we're going to be dealing with some of those developers should they be non-compliant going forward. Thank you. Diolch yn fawr iawn.
Thank you very much, Jane Dodds, for that set of questions. The last one first. We can't interfere in existing court proceedings; we just can't. So, if there's an existing court proceeding, that will have to see its route through the courts. I have absolutely no detail in front of me about which court proceedings are which, or what stage they're at, or any of the legal arguments you'd need to have an understanding of to be able to—. We have no locus to intervene in that, so, I'm afraid I can't do anything about that.
We have pressed the developers to remediate all of the buildings we're aware of, but I'm aware of at least two buildings that are in extensive litigation that probably will have to see that litigation through to its end, whatever that end is. I have no idea whether it's settleable or anything else, I'm afraid. It's partly why we didn't want to implement the sections that are being discussed all the time, because when people start court action under those sections, then it becomes even more immensely complicated than before. And actually, this is a very straightforward way of doing that—that we intervene with the developers, we give ourselves a contractual relationship with that developer, and the developer is then in a contractual relationship with us, the Welsh Government, and then, if they don't carry out that contractual arrangement to our satisfaction, then we have good legal grounds to go after them. And that's exactly the position we've wanted to get into, and it's taken us a while to do that, but I'm very pleased that we're there now. And then, as I said to Mabon ap Gwynfor, we will then need to also ensure that the work is done properly by skilled people with the right supply chain, and all the rest of it.
And just to get this number right—I think Mabon mentioned a number—. Just bear with me a second. Yes, we've got over 270 expressions of interest on 163 sites. So, you can see that we simply do not have the supply chain and the workforce to just suddenly do all of them, so we will have to carefully calibrate that. We will try and take a worst-first approach, and so on. So, more detail of that to follow, but we are asking the developers to do that as speedily as possible, and that's why I'm pleased to have put the loans in place as well, because I don't want any further excuses. So, there's no excuse; the money is there, the survey is done, we know what the work needs to do—all we need now to do is ensure that the skilled contractors are in place and able to get the supplies they need to do the work, and we'll be doing that as the next phase.
Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd, and I also welcome the commitments made in this statement as part of the co-operation agreement between Plaid Cymru and the Welsh Government. I also agree with the comments made by Mabon ap Gwynfor. In visiting many of these developments, it's incredible to see how many other problems some of these developments have, outwith the problems in terms of fire safety. So, I would first of all ask you: when will we see legislation introduced in this Senedd to ensure that developers can't continue to behave in this way?
I was very pleased to see that you've asked developers to sign legally binding contracts to complete the work. That was one concern that had been expressed to me with regard to the pact—that the pact itself would not be binding. I notice that you didn't give a timetable to my colleague Janet Finch-Saunders, but when do you expect all 11 developers to have signed the contract? And can I just see whether I understood what you told Mabon ap Gwynfor? Are you saying that no developers are not engaging with you at the moment?
I also wanted to deal with the dispute between developers and leaseholders. What role do you foresee Welsh Government playing in any future dispute between developers and leaseholders? And I don't want to pre-empt the short debate tomorrow, but what leaseholders really want to see, and what we hear time and time again from them, is that what they want is a clear timetable. I appreciate that timetables might have to move because of lack of skilled workers or resources, but when do you expect, Minister, that all remediation work in Wales will be completed? Diolch yn fawr.
Thank you very much for that. That last question is just an impossibility to answer at this point in time. What we need is a properly set out pipeline, if you like, of work, so that we have all of the skilled people that we can get our hands on in Wales doing the work at the right level, to the right spec, with the right supply chain. I absolutely cannot say how long that will take. As I said, we've got 163 sites to get through, but the big issue there is that we've made sure that those leaseholders who want to move on can move on, because we've got the lenders to get on board with that; they understand what will happen. We've got the leaseholder support scheme for those people who are really struggling to find a buyer for their flat because of the issues there, which the Welsh Government will help with—I absolutely want to allow people to get on with their lives. So we've worked very hard on other aspects of this in order to allow that to happen. So, I'm afraid I'm not going to speculate on that. It would be me speculating, and I don't think that's useful.
But we are, of course, urging the developers to go as fast as they can, using their own workforces and their own supply chains where they are sufficiently skilled and they can meet the specs coming out of the survey work. But it's very important that this is done right. What you don't want is to be talking to me, or whoever's standing in my shoes in the next Senedd, saying that we've got the same problem again. I simply cannot have that, so we need to make sure that it's right.
On the rest of it, what we want to do is bring forward a Bill that's fit for purpose. We've committed to doing that in this Senedd term. We have been doing a lot of work on this aspect of it, of course, but we've also been doing extensive consultation alongside responsible people, and so on, about what that should look like, who should the responsible people be, how should they be named, what their obligations should be for the build phase, the occupation phase and, indeed, the demolition phase. These buildings won't last forever. So, we need to get that right as well, but we will be taking that through in this Senedd term and I know that all Members, on every side of the house, are very anxious to see that in place. But again, that needs to be fit for purpose, doesn't it? It needs to have the right inspection regime and it needs to have the right responsible person regime in it. I would like to get it right, not fast. We'll get it right in as fast a way as we can, but correct is more important than speed in this instance, and it has to work. It has to be manageable, and it has to actually hold people's feet to the fire in terms of what they build in the future, so that we don't end up back here again.
Item 7 is the Non-Domestic Rating (Alteration of Lists and Appeals) (Wales) Regulations 2023, and I call on the Minister for Finance and Local Government to move the motion, Rebecca Evans.
To propose that the Senedd, in accordance with Standing Order 27.5:
1. Approves that the draft The Non-Domestic Rating (Alteration of Lists and Appeals) (Wales) Regulations 2023 is made in accordance with the draft laid in the Table Office on 28 February 2023.
Diolch. I move the motion to approve the Non-Domestic Rating (Alteration of Lists and Appeals) (Wales) Regulations 2023. The regulations provide for the Valuation Office Agency's digital platform and check, challenge, appeal process to be extended to Wales. They also enable the changes to make the arrangements for appeals to the valuation tribunal for Wales more effective and efficient.
A consultation that closed in 2018 explained the case for reform and sought views on proposed changes to the appeals system in Wales. The consultation provided an opportunity to consider how we can make our appeals system more robust, fit for the future and reflective of the tax base in Wales. One of the key messages from the consultation responses was that no changes should be made between revaluations. Our changes will therefore commence on 1 April when the new rating list takes effect. The VOA has been running the check, challenge, appeal process in England since 2017. In extending the approach to Wales, we have tailored the system to reflect the unique nature of our tax base and feedback from stakeholders. In particular, stakeholders have welcomed our decision not to introduce fees for appeals. If the other reforms are successful in minimising the number of unnecessary appeals, any additional benefit from a fee regime may not justify the administrative costs.
On 29 March 2022, I made an oral statement setting out the Welsh Government’s plans to reform non-domestic rates during the current Senedd term. We have recently consulted on a range of proposals, including plans to move towards more frequent revaluations. The changes that we are making to the appeals system are a critical enabler for this objective. A draft of the regulations was the subject of a technical consultation last year. On 4 November, I published a summary of responses and confirmed that we would move forward with the reforms to the appeals system. A small number of improvements have been made to the regulations in response to the comments received during the consultation.
I am grateful to the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee for its consideration of the regulations, and no issues have been raised. I ask Members to approve the regulations today.
Can I thank the Minister for opening this discussion? Plaid Cymru won’t be objecting to these regulations, but I did have a couple of questions that I’d like the Minister to address, if possible, given that I have an opportunity to raise them.
The new valuation and appeals system is heavily predicated on the new VOA digital platform. So, can I ask what consideration has been made of those whose access to the digital platform might be limited? I’m thinking particularly, but not necessarily only, of those who don’t have some key IT skills—but there are still connectivity issues relevant to some places—and those people, of course, whose disabilities might mean that it’s quite challenging for them to have access to that. In the same vein as well, what assurance can you give on the ability to process cases through the medium of Welsh? I think that we need assurances that that will be something that can be provided for those who require it.
Finally, the president of the Welsh Tribunals has recently recommended including the Valuation Tribunal for Wales within a reformed first-tier tribunal system. Now, if such a reform were to be implemented, what changes, if any, would need to be made to these proposals? Diolch.
Thank you very much to Llyr Gruffydd for those questions this afternoon. We have considered and consulted on the appeals reform over several years. In relation to access to digital connectivity, that wasn't raised as a particular barrier to our new proposals in terms of access to the VOA's digital platform. Bearing in mind that this is the system for non-domestic rates, most businesses will have either some level of digital connectivity or some degree of digital ability.
That said, we do have a much wider digital access and inclusivity agenda within the Welsh Government, which I think will be important in terms of addressing any of those gaps that remain in terms of digital skills. And of course, we continue to work on our broadband and connectivity issues more widely. So, I think that the use of the digital platform will be important in terms in ensuring that it continues to drive forward those wider digital access and connectivity agendas. So, I do take the points very much that have been made there.
In terms of the potential change for the role of the VTW and where that sits, I think that I will take some advice on that and write to Llyr Gruffydd following today's debate. But I think that, overall, these reforms will be warmly welcomed, bearing in mind that the aim, really, is about making the system more efficient and more effective, without putting those unnecessary burdens on ratepayers. The aim, of course, is that this will free up resources that will be directed to processing genuine appeals more quickly and improving service delivery. It's also important that the appeals process complements the arrangements being developed as part of our wider non-domestic rates reform, which is really about supporting more frequent revaluations. So, what we're discussing today, I think, is important in terms of giving us an important step forward in that particular direction as well.
We are very focused on having meaningful discussions with the VOA and the VTW, and I agree it's important that the Welsh language is an option for people in terms of their relationships with the VOA and the VTW, and, of course, we have important service level agreements with the VOA that include a range of standards and indicators, particularly in relation to the timely handling of appeals. But, obviously, the Welsh language is important in there as well.
This is a debate on the president of the Welsh Tribunal's annual report for 2021-22. I call on the Counsel General and the Minister for the Constitution to move the motion. Mick Antoniw.
To propose that the Senedd notes the annual report of the President of Welsh Tribunals on the operation of the Welsh Tribunals in the period April 2021 to December 2022.
I'm pleased to open this debate on the president of Welsh Tribunals' annual report 2021-22; it's the final annual report of Sir Wyn Williams as president. Before moving to the annual report itself, I'm sure that Members would wish to join with me in thanking Sir Wyn for his significant contribution as president of Welsh Tribunals. Sir Wyn was the first to hold the post, which was created by the Wales Act 2017. He is retiring from the role at the end of March. He has played a crucial role in taking the group of tribunals that were not reserved to the England-and-Wales jurisdiction, and were grouped together as Welsh tribunals. Through his leadership, a system of Welsh tribunals was created with strong judicial independence. I will now continue in English.
Dirprwy Lywydd, all parts of the justice system across the United Kingdom have faced very significant challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic, and the Welsh tribunals have been no different. The swift move to remote ways of working allowed the Welsh tribunals to operate fully through the pandemic, and the continued use of those remote ways of working, resisting the temptation to rush back to in-person-only proceedings, have meant that pandemic-related delays and backlogs have not happened here. This is to the enormous credit of those leading our tribunals and reflects that decisions taken in Wales in light of the needs of Wales can properly maintain people's access to justice.
That brings me to the question of reform. So, while it is to the credit of all involved in our tribunals that they've been able to operate successfully, things would have been much more efficient if we had a coherent tribunal structure with properly streamlined rules and procedures. We now have recommendations for reform from both the Commission on Justice in Wales, on which Sir Wyn had served as a commissioner, of course, and from the Law Commission, with whose report Members will be familiar.
In his annual report, Sir Wyn makes it very clear, while being careful not to stray into the world of political choices, that reform of our tribunals is not just desirable, but necessary. One of the recommendations made by the Commission on Justice in Wales, and also by the Law Commission, concerns the structural independence of the Welsh Tribunals unit. Not only is this an issue that has been a recurring theme in each of the president's annual reports, it is one that the president has reiterated in person before the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee. The president appeared before the committee most recently on the thirteenth of this month, where he said that justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done by making the administration of justice now conducted by the Welsh Tribunals unit independent of Government, and this is a position with which I do not disagree. As our system of Welsh tribunals under the Wales Act 2017 has developed, so has the Welsh Tribunals unit's role in administering them.
Of course, the Law Commission has provided a suite of recommendations, which set out structural reforms required to modernise our tribunals system. In 'Delivering Justice for Wales', I made clear our intention to legislate to create an integrated tribunals system. Remodelling of the administration of justice is an essential part of our journey towards building a justice infrastructure for Wales that is capable of managing the ever-greater divergence of law from England. It is right that, in developing legislative proposals, we consider all the options for the independence of the new tribunals system for Wales, and I've said before, and I'll repeat again: judicial independence is the guiding principle for the way in which judicial institutions are and will continue to be supported in Wales, and this will not be lost in the work that we are doing and preparing to reform our devolved tribunals in Wales. The Government is committed to this work, and I'll be setting out plans in due course with the publication of a White Paper in the coming months.
I'm listening to your arguments on this matter of reform, and it will be no surprise to you that I agree with you very much. I'm interested therefore that the Government are asking us to vote against the Conservative amendment on this matter in the vote this afternoon, and it appears to me that what the Conservative amendment is doing is very much along the lines that you've just described, so I'd be interested to know why you wouldn't want to support that amendment.
Well, I will come to that. It's one of those ironies that I'm really glad that there is an amendment, because it shows someone has read the paper and the importance of it to this Senedd, and it also reflects one of the positions in respect of independence. I think the point is that, if we're going to have a White Paper and we're going to have a consultation, there are of course other models of how the independence of the tribunals will operate, and my only view is that, even though I suspect we may well come back to that, it's just that it's premature at this stage, I think, to throw our lot in and say that this is the particular system. It may well be, but there are others, and I think we need to go through a process of proper consideration of those before we get to it, particularly in legislation of this type, which is reforming part of the judicial system.
So, as I was saying, I'm delighted that Sir Gary Hickinbottom will be the new president of tribunals, and, of course, he has considerable experience not only in the courts in Wales, but also in the Court of Appeal, and I look forward to working with him as we move forward towards a reformed tribunals service.
Deputy Llywydd, in closing, I hope Members will also join me in thanking the president of Welsh Tribunals for his annual report, and, of course, I'm sure we all wish him well for his retirement—his deserved retirement.
Supports calls for a much greater degree of independence for the Welsh Tribunals Unit, with the creation of a non-ministerial department to administer the Welsh Tribunals.
Diolch yn fawr. Questioning the Counsel General here in September 2021, I asked him for his initial response to proposals in the Law Commission's consultation paper on devolved tribunals in Wales to, in particular, reform the Welsh Tribunals unit, the part of the Welsh Government that currently administers most devolved tribunals, into a non-ministerial department.
I questioned the Counsel General here in July last July on the Law Commission's December 2021 final report on devolved tribunals in Wales, which included,
'we are persuaded that the non-ministerial department model is the one that should be adopted for the future administration of the system of devolved tribunals in Wales',
and which stated:
'The tribunals service should be operationally independent from the Welsh Government'.
I also noted that, although there is no absolute doctrine of separation of powers in the UK, the concept of separation of powers between the legislature—i.e. Senedd—Executive—i.e. Welsh Government—and the judiciary, has long applied in and across the UK to prevent the concentration of power by providing checks and balances. And I asked the Counsel General:
'What conclusions have you therefore now reached after considering the Law Commission's findings regarding this specific point?'
In his reply, the Counsel General stated,
'the points that the Member raises are absolutely fundamental, and that is that that part of the justice system has to be independent of Government...it has to be a model that ensures the independent operation of the Welsh Tribunals unit'.
This is seen in action in Scotland, where a judge chairs the board of the non-ministerial department there.
In the report we're debating today, the president of Welsh Tribunals, Sir Wyn Williams, highlights his support for nine major recommendations made by the commission, including that a tribunals service for Wales should be created as a non-ministerial department, and Welsh Ministers and others responsible for the administration of justice in Wales should be subject to a statutory duty to uphold the independence of the Welsh tribunals. He adds, however, that while the Welsh Government supports the Welsh Tribunals unit having a much greater degree of independence, it has not committed to creating a non-ministerial department to administer the Welsh tribunals. As he told the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee, he feels that citizens get nervous when there seems to be too much of a connection between the Government and judiciary, so there will be a need to make the Welsh Tribunals unit independent. I move amendment 1 accordingly, calling for a much greater degree of independence for the Welsh Tribunals unit with the creation of a non-ministerial department to administer the Welsh Tribunals unit.
I'm grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate today. I'd also like to thank the Welsh Government for scheduling the debate in a way that allowed for the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee’s consideration of the annual report.
And I join, at the outset, the Counsel General and others in paying tribute to the contribution of Sir Wyn, the president of Welsh Tribunals over the last six years. And indeed, as the Counsel General has remarked, he attended our committee only a week last Monday—yes, a week ago, the Monday just gone—and we discussed with him in some detail some of the key issues arising from his report. And I concur with the comments of the Counsel General there: one of the things that is quite signal in this report and his previous work is the independence that he's brought to the role. And also I have to say that we on the committee would pay tribute to those involved in the work of the tribunals in Wales as well. His time of office is coming to an end this month and we do, indeed, wish him very well indeed, and thank him for his engagement with the committee.
We had a discussion with Sir Wyn on the Welsh Government’s plans for reforms to the Welsh tribunals. He told us, in the way that he does, in a very intelligent and very nuanced way as well—he stressed to us, in his view, the advantages of a non-ministerial department to administer the tribunals, a point picked up by Mark and others, and Alun a moment ago, the importance of a Welsh Tribunals unit being independent from the Welsh Government and of the benefits of the creation of an appeal tribunal for Wales for those people seeking access to justice.
Now, I think I heard the Minister confirming—I think—that these options would be in there as part of the consultation, but I wonder if he could confirm that the White Paper and the consultation will indeed cover Sir Wyn's suggestions, if the Counsel General is saying he's neither ruling them in nor ruling them out at the moment, but he accepts the case for independence. I think Sir Wyn was quite nuanced in what he said. Whilst he came down firmly on the side of saying he sees the benefit of a non-ministerial department for the additional independence, he did acknowledge that there were other ways you could also do it. So, I think we'd look for the assurance that all of those options are going to be within the consultation. I note, Counsel General, that you said, in terms of the principles, the guiding principles of Welsh Government on this, that judicial independence is absolutely crucial.
I'd be grateful, as well, to hear your expectations, Counsel General, on when the legislation to reform the Welsh tribunals is likely to be introduced, and I wonder if you can commit to introducing it in this Senedd. If we acknowledge that it's important to improve people's access to justice, will we see it sooner rather than later?
We also heard about the decrease in the use of the Welsh language in Welsh tribunals over the last two years, which is concerning. We will be keeping a close eye on this issue when we hold future sessions with Sir Wyn's successor.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Sir Wyn once again for his work as president of Welsh Tribunals, and for his willingness to appear before my committee. Thank you very much, Llywydd.
Thank you to the Counsel General for bringing this debate forward this afternoon. I was a substitute on the committee when the report was discussed, and I'd like to echo our thanks to Sir Wyn Williams for his contribution in this important role.
Certainly, it is testament to him and his team that they fulfilled their responsibilities with the utmost professionalism and diligence throughout the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic. We of course wish all the best to his successor, Sir Gary Hickinbottom, who will take over the role in April.
I won't repeat some of the questions asked, but I think, in terms of the timescales, it is important. You've outlined today that commitment in terms of a White Paper in the coming months, but if there was a more specific timescale, I think that would be welcome.
Huw Irranca referred to the use of the Welsh language, and certainly that came through very strongly. It's only in relation to issues that relate to the Welsh language that the language is used at the moment, and I think normalising the use of the Welsh language and ensuring that everyone is aware that the Welsh language option is available is very important.
Another issue that became apparent during our discussion was on the issue of the budget moving forward. There was some uncertainty in terms of the decrease in the budget for the coming year, but also it is unclear at the moment what the costs will be in the future. Clearly, having been able to hold hearings virtually has reduced costs, but as things proceed, we don't know what the demand will be in that regard. He was very eager to emphasise with us that obviously we don't know either how many cases haven't been brought forward during COVID, and that we do need an assurance therefore that the budget will be sufficient for that work to proceed. So, I just wanted to reflect a little on that too.
Clearly, in terms of the White Paper, it's very important that we do see progress in this area.
Very clearly, Sir Wyn was clear in his support of the Law Commission's recommendations, which would enable the Welsh Tribunals to be more responsive to the devolved legislative landscape, so I do think that we do need to see progress in this regard.
Finally, I'd like to reflect on the overarching conclusion of the Law Commission, echoed by Sir Wyn in his report, which states that the current arrangements for the Welsh Tribunals are,
'complicated and inconsistent, and in some instances, unfit for practice',
and do not adequately reflect the scope of the Senedd's competencies. Such a verdict, of course, is applicable to the current justice system as a whole in Wales, which as the Thomas commission and numerous legal scholars have recognised, is also no longer fit for purpose in the devolved era. I hope, therefore, that this report serves to focus attention on the broader need for the full devolution of justice powers in Wales, to end the damaging position that our nation currently finds itself in, relative to the rest of the UK. I would also hope that it will spur Labour Members in particular to impress upon their Westminster colleagues that the proposals of the Gordon Brown report, which are a significant dilution of the Welsh Government's official position on the devolution of justice, are simply not good enough.
I think the access to all types of justice is hugely important, and the matters that tribunals deal with are obviously absolutely crucial for the individuals involved. Here we are again on the jagged edge of the justice system. Reading this annual report, I was very interested to learn that the president of Welsh Tribunals is conferred by the UK Parliament, whilst the civil servants administrating the tribunals are a unit within the Welsh Government.
The budget for this current year is £4.2 million. Is that coming out of the Welsh Government's budget or the UK Government's budget? These are important matters as we decide how we are going to devolve policing and justice to Wales, and to ensure that we have a smooth transition, with the finances to go with them. I noticed that Sir Wyn Williams met Lord Wolfson in 2022 about the then proposed bill of rights, something that may or may not re-emerge in the latest numbers of Ministers who've held this post, but, clearly, something that we're all going to want to have a say on in due course if it comes to pass.
I just want to focus the rest of my remarks on the mental health review tribunal, which clearly is the most important of all the tribunals, given the numbers that are going through it. First of all, I just want to congratulate Sir Wyn for having accurate data gathering, because we can't make proper decisions unless we know exactly what we're dealing with and, interestingly, his explanation as to why the numbers in 2019-20, of 1,900 and a few, have gone down to 1,291 in April to December 2022. Obviously that's not quite a full year. But if the methodology that has been adopted of cutting and pasting tribunal activity prevents human error in duplicating things, that's extremely important.
I wanted to express my concern as to the ambition to appoint two full-time salaried members of the mental health review tribunal, and it's disappointing to read that it wasn't possible to make such an appointment or appointments because of the calibre of the individuals who applied—they simply didn't have the skills required. So, it would be useful to know from the Counsel General was it that they weren't advertised widely enough, or the remuneration was not sufficient to reflect the very heavy duties of anyone involved in deciding whether to deprive someone of their liberty, either because of the risk to themselves or others.
Additionally, I note that a very experienced Welsh-speaking member of the mental health review tribunal could not be reappointed because of her age, simply because the Lord Chancellor had failed to consider a clause within the Judicial Pensions and Retirement Act 1993, which wasn't then passported through in the Public Service Pensions and Judicial Offices Act 2022, which is an indication of why we need to have these matters brought together, devolved to Wales, so that we don't come across such a matter again. Clearly, these are really important issues that are discussed here, and I'm very pleased that this annual report has been tabled this afternoon.
We often discuss, in this place, about devolving justice, and you'll hear arguments being said that we can't possibly have a Welsh justice jurisdiction, but here we have it. Today, we have proof that there is a small Welsh jurisdiction within the Welsh Tribunals service that deals with—as Jenny Rathbone reminded us—very important aspects of daily life: mental health; education; housing. Now, there is no coherency at all within the Welsh tribunals. The fact that there is now some coherency is due to the work of Sir Wyn, and I'd like to reiterate the tribute paid to him.
A big argument in favour of the devolution of justice to Wales is that what we have already we are doing well. I can't say we can always say that about the Welsh tribunals. I reiterate what Heledd Fychan said: the importance of a proper budget for the Welsh tribunals in going forward. For example, we often criticize the state of courts and tribunals within the reserved system, but the truth is that the centres within the Welsh tribunals are not very good, and I'm not even sure whether we had some fixed centres for some areas. For example, there used to be a centre in Southgate House, here in the centre of Cardiff—very convenient for public transport—and that has now closed. I know there was talk about the future of the centre in Newport. So, I'd like to hear, Gwnsler Cyffredinol, about what's happening with the Welsh tribunal centres.
I'd also like to hear when do you think we'll have an appeal tribunal here in Wales. When will it open? Not only will it be historical, but also it will make it far easier for people to know the appeal system, because it's all over the shop at the moment. I see the Welsh tribunals as playing a crucial role in access to justice, as Jenny Rathbone also mentioned.
There is no hearing fee in terms of the tribunals' cases; there is no need for a solicitor for cases in the tribunals. They've been designed so that it's easy for people to understand. It's done in a way that people are advised a great deal. It's much less adversarial than the courts system. So, what are the Counsel General's plans to expand that and to make it even easier for people to access Welsh tribunals?
Just to finish with the independence point—and I think this is important—as Sir Wyn Williams did say, justice must be seen to be done. The Welsh Tribunals unit—as you mentioned, and as has been stressed in every annual report by Sir Wyn—is independent, but the fact is it is based in Cathays Park, in the headquarters of Welsh Government, which could be a party in a tribunal. If this was happening in Westminster, we would rightly protest. It shouldn't happen in Wales, and it's not a good reflection on how we do things here in Wales. So, if not a non-ministerial department, what other options are you considering, Gwnsler Cyffredinol? Diolch yn fawr.
Like others in the debate this afternoon, I'd like to pay my own tribute to Sir Wyn Williams upon his retirement. It was good to be able to have the conversation with him last week at the committee. I think sometimes it demonstrates the power of actually being present with somebody in the same room, because we've had conversations on different occasions with Sir Wyn that have always been on the screen, virtual conversations, but last week we were able to have that face-to-face conversation, and it was very useful, particularly as in many ways it was a valedictory hearing, where we were listening to his reflections on his time as president of Welsh Tribunals, and where we were able to have not so much a hearing, but a conversation with Sir Wyn. It's certainly something that I felt was very valuable. I'm sure other committee members who were there also found it valuable. It's important, I think, that we're able to have these conversations as we move forward to reform the system.
I was greatly cheered by the response of the Counsel General to my earlier intervention in his speech. I think it is important that we look towards how we can ensure the independence of tribunals—proper independence from Government and from this place—and ensure that we do have a conversation about how we want to take these matters forward. I very much agree with the point that's just been made by Rhys ab Owen about the need for an appeal tribunal, an appeal process to be put in place, which also I think will strengthen the work of the tribunals.
When I was reading Sir Wyn's report, I must admit my eyes were dragged straight to the final chapter, where he says he wanted to make a few reflections. I agree very much with what he said, thanking people who were retiring. As an education Minister, I remember the work of Rhiannon Walker, and I think it is important that we put on record here today thanks to her for her work in her retirement.
It's also important to look at what the experience is in Wales and how that experience can be put to work for the future. I was very taken by what he said about the impact of COVID and the way that's challenged ways of working, and I think in terms of delivery of justice, it is important that we look again at what COVID has questioned in terms of our assumptions about how these things are supposed to operate. I think it is important that we look at the work of the tribunals from the point of view of the individual they are serving and not from the point of view of people who administer or run the tribunals. I think Sir Wyn had a number of very interesting points to make about how the impact of COVID had affected and strengthened, perhaps, the voice of people who are coming to a tribunal.
Diolch, Llywydd. I notice we are ahead of time. I'm enthused by the fact that this important subject has had so many contributions, so I hope it might give me a little bit of leeway if I try and answer some of those questions.
The first thing I'll deal with is Mark Isherwood's point, and the point that others made, on this issue of the model and the independence. I've absolutely no real disagreement with much of what's been said; I think it's really just about the timing and the process we go through to achieve it. His Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service, of course, operates on an executive agency model. The other sort of model might be a Welsh Government sponsored body that would fulfil that particular function.
I have a fairly firm view in my own mind in terms of the importance of a non-ministerial department. It also then leads, of course, to the need to create, in due course, a specific justice department here and a justice ministry, and so on. Those are probably matters for the next Senedd. I just think it's premature at this stage, on the back of this report, with a new president of tribunals coming in, before the White Paper, before we've actually introduced legislation, to be saying, 'This is the model that we're going to have'. I think if the amendment had basically confirmed the importance of the independence, I think there would be complete unity. So, it's not so much disagreeing with you, and I'm glad that you've actually brought an amendment because it's opened up that debate. I'm just not encouraging support for it because I think it's premature for that particular reason.
On some of the other issues raised, Huw raised quite a number of issues about the White Paper and covering all options. Yes, it will cover all options, exactly that. It has to, basically, consider those, to analyse those, and then it'll be ultimately up to the Government to bring forward legislation, and then for the Senedd to consider that and to discuss those options and the correct model for that.
You're absolutely right in terms of the tribunals, and the other points that Rhys made, and others, in terms of the location. I'm going to see the tribunal premises we have in Newport in Oak House. I do think, though, potentially looking ahead to the devolution of other areas of justice as well, we might need to look more broadly in terms of a location of a court service and tribunal service for Wales outside the buildings of Government, particularly in light of the comments I've made in the past about the situation and condition of the civil justice centre, and so on. Those are only things I touch on to explore, but I think there may well be options that are there.
In terms of issues that Jenny Rathbone raised with regard to the mental health tribunal, of course, it is very significant in terms of numbers. Our tribunal system has to deal with the demand that is there. You'll see that although they've been mainly online hearings, a lot of choice has been given to enable individuals to choose which model that they want to have. With regard to the two salaried members, these are significant and substantial judicial positions. They are six-figure judicial positions. I think the issue may well be in terms of clarity over precisely what the job is, what the home of the judges effectively is, and probably the advertising of it. I'm confident that that will be resolved, but it reflects the importance particularly of the mental health tribunal situation.
The proposal is to agree amendment 1. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Yes, there is objection to amendment 1, and so we'll defer voting under this item entirely until voting time.
1. Notes the Annual Report for 2021-22 of His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education and Training in Wales that was laid in Table Office on 1 February 2023.
2. Notes the report’s assertion that although many of the issues that arose during the pandemic started to show signs of gradual improvement, challenges remain.
3. Welcomes the report’s conclusion that education and training providers have responded with fortitude to the challenges, placing learners at the heart of their work.
4. Welcomes the report’s findings that all providers have rightly focused on learner and staff well-being, with the strongest providers continuing to have open and honest self-evaluation and an unrelenting focus on teaching and learning.
Thank you, Llywydd. I’d like to open this debate by thanking Owen Evans, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education and Training in Wales, for his annual report. It’s an independent picture of how providers of education and training are performing and helping our learners to develop. The report provides a valuable source of evidence, helping to steer the development of policy at a national level.
I’d like to begin by welcoming the new approach taken by Estyn for its annual report this year—trying to improve its impact as much as possible by publishing interim messages in September, giving an early snapshot of what works and what needs to be strengthened. The final report was published in January with a series of questions and self-reflection resources, and the chief executive has shared with me that there has been more engagement this year in terms of the findings of the annual report. It’s good to hear that.
It's worth noting that this annual report draws on direct evidence since inspections restarted in the spring term of 2022, which reminds us of the ongoing impact of the pandemic on our learners and the education workforce. We know that the impact of COVID on language and reading is still felt by many learners, and that’s why I have invested in a programme that will support over 2,000 children to improve their language, communication and reading skills. The 10-week programme, led by Bangor University, provides a language and literacy programme that is intensive and interactive, for children aged between seven and 11. We’ve also established and will continue to fund a purpose-built funding programme to support schools as they deal with the ongoing impact of the pandemic. We’re also monitoring the impact of the pandemic on the education and well-being of children and young people over the medium and longer term, and this will ensure that any issues that emerge will be recorded early, and appropriate mitigation steps will be put in place quickly.
I was pleased to read that, despite the challenges from the pandemic, the report recognises that education and training providers have responded with fortitude and institutions brought closer to their learners and the communities they serve. I'm continually grateful, Llywydd, to everyone working in the education sector for all they have done and continue to do to support our learners. I'm pleased to see that providers across sectors have placed a strong emphasis on supporting well-being. As I've previously said, when learners are happy, supported by a secure, contented teaching workforce, they are more likely to be confident and motivated in their learning. It is not surprising that, due to the pandemic, the report highlights that there has been an increasing demand for well-being and mental health support. We recognise this need.
We published our whole-school approach to mental health and well-being and increased the budget available to help meet the needs of pupils and the school community. We've also allocated additional funding to local authorities, to health boards and to third sector organisations, recognising the importance of the wider public and third sector working in partnership to provide direct support to schools. In 2022-23, we also allocated additional funding to support mental health and well-being in the further education sector. However, there is of course more that we can do. The pandemic has demonstrated why, more than ever, we need our new Curriculum for Wales. The new curriculum has well-being at the heart of what we want for our learners, giving them the tools to be enterprising, to adapt and respond to an ever-changing world.
The report’s findings helpfully set out areas of curriculum reform that are working well, and some aspects to focus on. These align closely with our understanding of how this significant change programme is moving forward, and how schools and settings should be supported this year and into the next. I have always been clear, Llywydd, that this roll-out will take time. Indeed, it is only from this September that all schools in Wales will be teaching the new curriculum, and only from 2026 that it will extend to all years in all schools. I fully recognise the variability of progress in developing teaching and learning to align with the curriculum for Wales. This is not new or distinct to curriculum reform, but nevertheless, something that we take very seriously system-wide. Indeed, I raised this issue in my curriculum annual report last July.
I am clear that schools should be receiving bespoke support to help them roll out their curriculum. We have also provided resources to support progression and assessment, have continued to bring practitioners together as part of a national network to ensure that teachers’ voices are core to our reforms, and we have published school improvement guidance to underpin the new curriculum.
It's a pleasure to take part in this debate tonight on the Estyn annual report 2021-22. I want to start by paying tribute to our dedicated members of staff up and down the country, who work hard, day in day out, to ensure that our learners are given the best opportunities to learn possible.
This is the first Estyn annual report since the pandemic began that has remained largely unaffected by lockdowns impacting Wales or, indeed, the wider UK. However, it was concerning that there are some identifiable lasting impacts of that time picked up within the report, as 2021-22 was characterised in all sectors with their handling of the ongoing impacts of the pandemic. Some of the negative consequences, such as the damage it did to the literacy and numeracy skills of learners, particularly regarding the oracy skills of younger pupils, as well as their slow rates of improvement since. And let's not forget that we on this side of the Chamber in the Welsh Conservatives called for mask mandates in schools to end sooner, and instead, this Labour Government allowed them to stay in place longer than needed, thus stifling class participation and social development.
When it comes to the new curriculum, the report claims that the majority of providers recognised the importance of adapting and improving their teaching, as well as their curriculum content. However, as I keep hearing myself on a tour of local schools in my constituency, leaders remained concerned about the assessment and progression and what progress through the curriculum should look like.
It was also found that support received by schools from local authorities and consortia was often too generic, rather than bespoke for each school's needs. The implementation of the CfW was not sector-limited either. In fact, the report distinctly notes that very few primary schools used curriculum guidance confidently, and only half of secondary schools have already begun to introduce the Curriculum for Wales. By pressing for curriculum reform, the Welsh Government have caused schools to prioritise curriculum design over improving the effectiveness of teaching, and have failed to acknowledge sufficiently the significant impact that improving the quality of teaching has on ensuring the progress of pupils. Yet, the Welsh Government have cut the teacher development and support by £2.2 million in real terms in the budget, and that just doesn't add up.
We in the Welsh Conservatives called for the curriculum's roll-out to be delayed so that schools in Wales would have time to focus on recovery from the pandemic and to shore up teacher numbers, rather than having their efforts and focus distracted at such a critical time. Myself and colleagues in the Chamber, on various occasions, have called for a more concrete end goal and for the Ministers to address concerns around assessment and progression, and what progress is meant to look like. It's very clear that we have an issue with too much flexibility and when it comes to the additional learning needs that the Minister mentioned, and the recent reforms, the report noted that the understanding of individual members of staff about their responsibilities in supporting pupils with ALN needs is variable.
Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this debate today. Clearly, it aligns with our previous discussion in terms of the Welsh Government's vision for education. I'd like to add my thanks to Owen Evans; I think that the report, certainly, is very comprehensive. I welcome the new format, as mentioned by the Minister, and I think that thematic reports, specifically, give us a clear picture in terms of some of the major challenges that our schools face.
I also think that it contrasts, perhaps, with some of the things that we discussed earlier in terms of there being a positive picture in terms of education in Wales. Because one of the things that you look at in terms of the report is the genuine challenges. Clearly, there are positives in the report, as it offers solutions too and talks about the role of so many partners in terms of the contribution that they can make. But I think one of the questions that remains with me is in terms of the Minister, there are so many challenges posed in this report—it's a very honest report regarding those challenges, which you have previously referred to in terms of the disproportionate impact on children and young people specifically. We were in a challenging situation pre COVID, but this outlines an image that shows clearly those additional challenges that have been created.
Clearly, one of the things that we know is a major challenge for the Government is in terms of budgets. Do you believe that you have the resources to genuinely get to grips with all of the challenges outlined in the report? Clearly, there is funding going into several areas, but in general, there are so many—so many—things that we need to improve here in order to be able to achieve the vision that you mentioned earlier in terms of giving the best possible opportunities to all of our learners. I think that this is a moment for us to reflect here on how we work together and how we ensure that all of these things are going to come together.
Some further reflections. Clearly, we have already discussed one of the themes, namely sexual harassment, but looking again at that section, the fact that half of the pupils—the majority of them girls—have personal experience of sexual harassment; that three quarters of all pupils have seen another pupil suffer sexual harassment—these are frightening statistics in our schools now. And I think that one of the other things that I would like to see is how we are going to ensure that the school environment is safe for every single one of our learners. And it aligns with the work that we're trying to do in terms of ensuring that Wales is a nation that provides equal opportunities for everyone, but it concerns me that this is the learner experience in educational institutions at the moment.
I'd also like to just refer to some of the issues regarding teacher training, which you have specifically referred to, but I think one of the things outlined in the report was in terms of the inconsistencies in the experience of training. I just wanted to know how you think we can tackle that.
As a former teacher, lecturer and council cabinet member for education and consortia chair, I have immersed myself for many years in the educational challenges that face our practitioners every day, day in, day out, but never in more challenging economic and social circumstances. Teachers, as well as us, face the deepest UK inequality since records began, as our schools tackle poverty on the ground and its impact on attainment every day. And having once taught across most of the primary and secondary schools of Islwyn, I have also so far this year visited a number of schools, including Newbridge and Islwyn high schools and Markham and Bryn primaries, so that I can understand first hand, on the ground, the situation as it is today.
And Minister, though never more challenging, the dedication and enthusiasm of students, teachers, school staff and governors has been manifest and has shone through in the face of that challenge. Our teachers and governors and school leaders do not need, though, to be beaten by politicians and autocrats, but supported, nurtured and enabled by excellence and structural agencies. And today, as well as real challenge, there is a genuine excitement about education in Wales, at the cusp of a new renaissance in outcomes, led not by old and tired models, but rather the very best practice internationally, praised by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development internationally, alongside New Zealand, Ireland and Estonia. And it's especially uplifting when we stop and consider that, just three years ago, all schools across Wales were being closed in the brunt of the COVID world pandemic.
Islwyn itself is incredibly proud of excellent Estyn reports that have been recently published for Cefn Fforest Primary School, Markham Primary School and Pontllanfraith Primary School. And I note from the annual report that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic continued to be felt throughout the academic year. Islwyn teachers and school leaders are to be commended for the utmost agility and innovative thinking that they have shown during truly extraordinary times. So, thank you. Estyn note that there has been a notable increase, however, in demand for well-being and mental health support. This presents a fundamental challenge to schools, local authorities and the Welsh Government as to how this need will be addressed. It probably needs underscoring and revisiting, as it will inevitably be one of the pandemic's most profound legacies. We owe it to our children to meet those needs. I was also, though, encouraged to read that Estyn comment that the provision for pupils with additional learning needs is a strength in the majority of secondary schools. Our secondary schools are now becoming far more adept at responding to the individual needs of the learner before them, whilst creating an inclusive learning community. That is excellent news, and we should celebrate that.
Thank you, Llywydd, and thank you to everyone for their contributions to this afternoon's debate. It has been an important opportunity for Members to express their views on the annual report. As more than one contributor has said, education in Wales is changing, and we are implementing major changes and reforms in terms of the curriculum and additional learning needs and in other ways too. There are a number of challenges in terms of how we mitigate the impact of deprivation on the attainment of our young people, and more than one contributor has mentioned the importance of that in this afternoon's debate on the annual report. The report demonstrates that we have a great deal to take pride in in the education system. It also highlights the challenges that we have to address.
I agree, Llywydd, that this includes a number of the items that Members have raised today. Gareth Davies spoke about the importance of investing in oracy, and whilst I disagree with him that the solution to that lay simply in a policy approach to masks, and take the view that the challenges are much, much more profound than that, I mentioned in my opening remarks the investment that we are making in oracy and in relation to supporting young people in very innovative ways, but this is a very significant challenge, as he in his comments recognised.
He once again made the call for the curriculum reforms to have been delayed. Having been through a period during COVID when the focus of the entire school system was on more creative approaches to teaching and learning, putting well-being at the very heart of everything the school does, that seemed to me to be fundamentally consistent with the values of the new curriculum, and continuing with the introduction when we did, last September, reflected very much the level of enthusiasm in the school system, which I don't think he reflected in his comments. And if we are looking for evidence of that, when secondary schools were presented with the opportunity of delaying the introduction of the curriculum in secondary schools, almost half of them decided not to do that but to press forward in September of last year. I think that gives us a clear indication of the level of commitment across the system and the appreciation that teachers have of the value of the new curriculum.
A number of Members made very important points about resourcing, and I can confirm in response to Heledd Fychan, whether it's the recruit, recover and raise standards funding or the PDG funding or the investment in mental health and well-being initiatives that both she and Rhianon Passmore rightly identified as being essential, the work that Lynne Neagle and I have done together has meant that there has been a substantial increase in the level of funding available to support the whole-school approach, and that will include the extension of counselling services to meet what is absolutely a recognised and increasing demand in relation to that as well.
Llywydd, as we embark on these reforms, I think it's more important than ever to have an independent inspectorate to examine progress and to share candidly with us strengths and weaknesses in the system and to do so in the way that Rhianon Passmore was reminding us is so important, to do it in a way that is supportive of the profession and learners. So, I would like to thank Estyn and the whole team of inspectors for their ongoing work and their dedication in providing an objective and independent analysis of the performance of the—[Interruption.] Certainly.
I'm grateful for the Minister taking an intervention. We heard from the Member from Islwyn about the tragedy in England, obviously, with the headteacher taking her life. What discussions have you had with the Welsh inspectorate to make sure that there is that pastoral care and that understanding? I appreciate we do have a different system, but there are various pressure points and stress points that obviously put a huge burden on our headteachers and senior management teams and governors. I think it would be, especially in the current climate, good understanding what discussions you as the Minister have had with the inspectorate to understand what measures are put in place.
Well, that's a very important point. It's a part of our ongoing discussions with the inspectorate. He will know that the reforms that the inspectorate have undertaken in Wales have moved away the focus of accountability in schools from that single, summative judgment, which is where, often, some of the tensions have arisen, and we, I think, have seen some of the consequences of that elsewhere. What we know from those discussions is that heads and the inspectorate have been able to have much richer, much more supportive conversations, recognising both the strengths and the areas of challenge for a school, and that, when those reports are issued, they reflect the breadth of that picture rather than focusing on one or two, often, words. And I think that has created, and is beginning to create, a much more constructive culture in our schools, which I know that he would also support.
I'm pleased that we've been able to increase funding to Estyn to enable the inspectorate to complete the inspection of all schools in the current cycle by July 2024. And in conclusion, Llywydd, as the debate today has reflected, we are all of course aware of the ongoing challenges of the pandemic, and the importance of alleviating the impact of poverty on educational attainment. Just in the way that a number of speakers have said today, it's only by working together at all levels of the education system, and also in this Chamber, that we will succeed in giving the best possible education to every single learner in Wales.
The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? [Objection.] There is objection. We will therefore defer voting on the motion until voting time.
And that brings us to voting time. And unless three Members wish for the bell to be rung, we will move immediately to the vote. And the first vote this afternoon is on the debate on the president of the Welsh Tribunals annual report. And I call for a vote on amendment 1, tabled in the name of Darren Millar. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 14, no abstentions, 38 against. Therefore, amendment 1 is not agreed.
Item 9. Debate: The President of the Welsh Tribunals Annual Report 2021-22. Amendment 1, tabled in the name of Darren Millar: For: 14, Against: 38, Abstain: 0
The next vote is on the motion tabled in the name of Lesley Griffiths. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 52, no abstentions and none against. That motion is therefore agreed.
The next vote is on the debate on the Estyn annual report. And I call for a vote on the motion, tabled in the name of Lesley Griffiths. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 39, 13 abstentions and none against. Therefore, the motion is also agreed.
Through this Bill and our clean air and noise and soundscape plans, we set out the action needed to protect public health and the environment. I strongly believe we can collectively deliver this action across society, securing clean air and positive soundscapes for current and future generations. I would like to say thank you to the many people who have got us to this point. It has been an extremely positive and collaborative effort. Everyone deserves to breathe clean air and experience a good quality sound environment. The future is in our hands. I look forward to working with you all as the Bill makes its way through the scrutiny process. Diolch.
Concerns have also been raised regarding the road user charging proposals, as we have also raised many times with you, with many respondents stating the need for sustainable alternative transport. Rural areas were highlighted in particular, with respondents identifying communities and businesses in these areas that do have fewer transport alternatives. And as we’ve seen from the widespread backlash to the roads review, this investment in alternatives has been sadly lacking from this Welsh Labour Government.
So, in light of the cost-of-living crisis, will you consider the disastrous idea to introduce road charges for commuters, which will further penalise people suffering from cuts to local transport services? It is important that the Welsh Government does not use this Bill to punish the people of Wales. With the Bill set to include provisions to enable road charging, Welsh Ministers must remember that every local authority in Wales has at least 30 per cent of households facing transport poverty. We will certainly not be supporting any trunk road charging schemes as we put forward our amendments to this Bill. Welsh workers already have the lightest pay packets in Great Britain. The Welsh Government should not be subjecting our motorists to further additional costs. So, will you ensure, Minister, that both health and social justice are entrenched in the purpose of this Bill, and that your Bill does not place the greatest burden for reducing pollution on those who can least afford it?
I look forward to working with you, Minister, as this Bill comes forward. I’m sure that we won’t get all of our amendments through, but let’s try and work together, cross-party, to ensure that this Bill is fit for purpose for the next 50, 100 or 200 years. Thank you. Diolch.
But I emphasise this is about education and making the people of Wales aware of what effect their own behaviour has on the surroundings there. I say this all the time: we all wear many hats, so if you're a mother or an auntie or whoever you are, and you're in your local environment, you can do some things about your own behaviour. But you'll also be an employee, you'll also be a member of a local community, you'll also be all kinds of other things, and, for each of those hats, you can think very seriously, 'What can I do to affect this environment in the way I live?' So, you can lobby your employer, you can lobby your community, you can lobby your local authority, and you can change your own behaviour at home. If we do all of that together, we will make a very significant difference.
I would echo some of the concerns of the British Heart Foundation that the Bill doesn't include everything that was promised in the clean air plan, like commitments to reduce harmful fine particulate matter pollution or PM2.5. Could you address the rise in PM2.5 that's linked to domestic burning in relation to this, please, Minister, and would you commit to reducing it in line with World Health Organization guidelines?
I would echo what's been said in praise of Joseph Carter, and some of the questions that have been posed by Asthma and Lung UK. Some of this has definitely been covered in the statement. If there's anything further you can say, Minister, on this, and whether the Bill will bring national and local air pollution monitoring together, whether guidance will be made available on clean air low emission zones, when that will be published—. And again, I appreciate some of this has been covered, but most pressingly, in the time that I have left, Minister, could you please give us some clarity on how the effect of this Bill will be measured, how it will protect our health and environment, and what benefits will come from having a statutory duty to promote awareness about the effects of air pollution, which, again, is something that so important, and I really, really welcome the fact that that's included? Because it isn't all about a name; there is so much here that there is to welcome, and I would echo what's been said: I hope that we as a Senedd can work in a cross-party way to ensure that this Bill is as strong as is needed and that it does get the results that we so desperately need to see. So, diolch yn fawr iawn, Gweinidog, and to your team for your work on this.
So, I think this is a huge step forward for Wales. I'm glad we've been able to put the soundscapes stuff into it as well, because that actually is just as important in many areas of Wales. And just to make the last point, we know that it really enhances mental health for people to be able to hear the sounds of the natural world, so if you can get the ambient noise down so that you can hear the dawn chorus, we know that that really helps people. So, it's really important to do that. It might seem ephemeral but it really isn't.
RPBs continue to commit over 60 per cent of their regional integration fund to models of care that provide greater community capacity both for now and in the future. The investment over the remaining four years will also greatly support our ambitions to move further faster towards an integrated community care system for Wales. The regional integration fund is also helping us to deliver other key priorities including the NYTH/NEST model. This is leading a whole-system approach to mental health and well-being services for babies, children and young people. And with the continued expectation that a minimum of 20 per cent of the regional integration fund is invested in delivery through social value sector organisations, it is also helping to support our agenda on rebalancing the care and support market.
I do recognise that RPBs and their partners have been working to maximise the impact of the fund at a time when wider system pressures and recovery from COVID have impacted massively on statutory partner resources and capacity. In this context, and at the request of our partners, Welsh Government officials reviewed the tapering and match funding requirements of the fund. In December, Ministers agreed to relax these arrangements in the short term, but not losing sight of the longer term aspirations of the fund to establish longer term mainstreamed services.
Learning and improvement is an important part of our ethos for the development of health and social care. I'm therefore pleased to announce today that, after a competitive tendering process, we've secured the services of the University of South Wales, in a collaboration with Old Bell 3 and Bangor and Swansea universities, to undertake the evaluation of our regional integration fund. It's evident that in its first year the regional integration fund has started to further a true partnership approach to investing in integrated services for the long term. I will continue to meet regularly with RPB chairs to discuss progress and will be taking a keen interest to see how our national models of integrated care continue to evolve over the next year.
These are exciting times for education in Wales. We are in the middle of a reform programme from reception to year 11. We are focused on its successful roll-out and developing new GCSEs to support the new curriculum. Vocational qualifications and the wider 16 to 18 offer is also under review. Transformational reforms to post-16 education are also in train, and need to be aligned so that we can maximise the benefit to learners in Wales, from the early years to adults seeking a second chance. This is really important as we move towards the establishment of the commission for tertiary education and research. The commission will be responsible for the strategic planning and funding for post-16 education and research, which includes sixth forms, further education colleges, higher education, work-based learning, apprenticeships, and adult learning. This whole-system approach to tertiary education will help us narrow educational inequalities, expand opportunities, and raise standards. Our tertiary reforms will support the different but complementary strengths of all institutions. In this way, learners of all ages will have access to the full range of opportunities, and will be able to contribute economically, academically, and to our communities.
We want and need an education system that works together, making the transition from one stage of learning to the next seamless, adapting quickly to changes in the world and in technology. This new road map brings together our policies and ambitions for education. We'll continue to tackle the impact of poverty on attainment, and provide all learners with the knowledge, skills and experiences to be healthy, educated and enterprising citizens of Wales and the world. Wales has a rich cultural heritage, which includes a high regard for learning, and we are building on this. I believe that this road map is strengthening those foundations, which will help us lead to a prosperous, fairer and equitable future.
The final point I'd like to raise today, Minister, concerns teachers. In your statement, you say that you are speaking with teachers and support staff, which is always welcomed. But a key concern of mine when I speak to teachers and those in other education sectors is the shortage of teachers in key STEM subjects, such as chemistry and physics, which I have brought up previously in this Chamber. As I am sure you will agree with me, Minister, STEM subjects are vitally important for our future workforce and the prosperity of our country, therefore, what assessment have you made of the shortage of science teachers in both English and Welsh language-medium schools, and what action will you take to rectify it? Thank you.
If I could ask some specific questions on the 16 to 25 cohort in the road map, you mention the opportunities for them to learn Welsh language skills, or to use the Welsh language, but there isn’t much reference, from what I see, in terms of developing specific Welsh language apprenticeships, and we know how important enabling that particular cohort to use the Welsh language in the workplace is. So, perhaps you could provide us with more information on that. You also mentioned leadership, and in your statement you said that this was a positive time in terms of education. But we also know of the huge challenges that exist within the sector. We know that teachers and classroom assistants have been on strike recently, they have been fighting for fair pay, but they are also talking about workload. We see that the numbers of applicants for initial teacher training courses are down. So, how are we going to ensure—? The emphasis in your statement is on ensuring that high standards and aspirations for all are in place, which includes learners but also staff. So, how are we going to resolve that issue? Because there is still a feeling of dispute in many schools because of workload. Whilst I warmly welcome the new curriculum, I am concerned about the workload and all of the additional challenges that our teachers face.
I would also like to ask you in terms of the Welsh in education Bill. Now, you mentioned that Welsh is clearly an important part of this. But, in terms of the Welsh in education strategic plans, how important will the Bill be in terms of delivering this specifically? The main thing that I take from this, I think—. There is nothing to oppose in what you have said, but the main issue is: how are we going to ensure that equality of opportunity for everyone? It's not clear for me as yet—given all of the challenges that we face in terms of child poverty levels, which are increasing, and in terms of absence levels being so high amongst some in schools—how we are going to deliver this. I fear that this is just words on paper, and many of our vulnerable pupils will miss out on the education that they need to develop into confident adults.
In terms of workload, it's right to say that this is a cause of concern for many teachers. We have been working creatively and positively with the teaching unions over the past few weeks to be able to achieve the plans that have been in train for some time to decrease the workload and to do that in a way that is co-ordinated across the system. So, I very much hope that members of the unions will approve the proposals that have been made, but we have a programme of work that I am confident will improve the situation in terms of workload for practitioners the length and breadth of Wales.
She'll know already, of course, that there is an important role for the Welsh language in education Bill in providing a clearer framework in terms of what local authorities will provide in terms of strategies, and I'll be able to see more about that jointly with Cefin Campbell over the coming weeks.
I think her last question was in relation to investment in Welsh-medium education, and she will know that, as part of our capital funds, we’ve obviously invested very significantly in the fabric of our Welsh-medium estate, but there is an opportunity, I think, partly through the Bill that we hope to introduce, working together with Plaid Cymru, to make sure that every single young person’s experience of education in Wales, whether they choose a Welsh-medium school, a bilingual school, or an English-medium school, is one that, over time, we can be confident gives each young person a level of confidence in speaking Welsh, so that our system, whichever medium school, is united around that goal of equipping our young people with a skill in one of our national languages.
The fourth strand is progress in the social sector. Alongside the support I have outlined that is being provided to the private sector, substantial works have also been undertaken to remediate medium and high-rise residential buildings in the social sector. To date, works have been completed on 26 social sector buildings and are under way on a further 41 buildings. Today, I am also announcing that £40 million has been made available to undertake fire safety works on a further 38 buildings in the social sector.
The fifth strand is leaseholder support schemes. I'm pleased to say that our leaseholder support scheme is designed to help people in Wales who are in or facing significant financial hardship as a direct result of these building safety issues. In January, I announced that a review of the criteria had been completed. As a result of this, our case handlers have seen a significant increase in inquiries about the scheme. I am pleased to tell you that the first properties are now proceeding with their sales and, once completed, this will allow those leaseholders to move on to new homes. I continue to urge any leaseholders in financial difficulty to complete our eligibility checker, to see if they can access support through this scheme. For further information, please visit the Welsh Government website.
The sixth strand is lenders. I am also pleased to confirm that the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors have agreed to extend their guidance to valuers to apply to both England and Wales. We are working closely with them as this guidance is updated. This guidance will provide consistency in the valuation approach for properties in Wales that are included in the developer-led work, those buildings in our initial orphan cohort, or where we have been able to confirm buildings are either below 11m in height or deemed low risk. This will help support the removal of barriers and allow leaseholders to access mortgages and other financial products. I continue to work with UK Finance to ensure lenders recognise the situation in Wales, so that lenders can provide mortgages for those living in buildings affected by fire safety issues.
Regular updates are available on the Welsh Government's building safety programme via our newsletter. This provides information on both progress and highlights any formal announcements that have been made in the Senedd on this subject. Dirprwy Lywydd, I am very happy to provide details of how to subscribe to this newsletter if Members or their constituents are interested.
The Welsh Government are committed to addressing building safety in Wales and will continue to take forward our building safety programme. I look forward to updating Members as we develop our ambitious plans for delivery. Diolch.
You mention that the first properties are now proceeding with their sales, and once completed this will allow those leaseholders to move on to new homes. I am sure that that will come as a really huge assurance to them. However, my question again is: when will we know the numbers that have already shown an interest? Those at the meeting I held didn't seem to be too aware of how they do this. So, can you, as well as putting, 'Please visit the Welsh Government website'—? Maybe you could make a statement or—I know there's a big budget now here in this Welsh Government for social media—use social media as a medium to get that message across that people can come forward to you.
I'm glad that you're working with UK Finance. I had to change what I was expecting to put towards you today. But I do think it's a more proactive statement than what we've heard of late. I don't want to repeat, but I need to know how much you've been spending.
Now, you're refusing to replicate sections 116 to 125, and I'm sorry to keep labouring this point, but it is a fact that the people caught up in this really don't understand legislation like we do—those who actually work in the Welsh Government or those in Parliament holding you to account. I just wonder why you will not allow Welsh private leaseholders to have the same legal levers as those across the border. You could bring in legislation here that replicates sections 116 to 125 to a degree whereby it can still have Welsh identity on it. Minister, will you consider looking at sections 116 to 125 again? How you do it, I don't think people are interested, but if you can actually give those same protections to the people living here in Wales, I think you will make an awful lot of people very happy and not afraid to keep living in their homes, as they are today. Thank you.
On the orphan buildings, all the buildings that we have identified as orphan buildings that have put in an expression of interest will now be remediated, because we have a mechanism to do so. They'll all be written out to very shortly and will begin those works as soon as possible, certainly before this summer. So, they will all start to go into remediation, and I really hope that several of the other buildings will. I'm aware that several buildings are now in remediation. There are buildings in my own patch that are now in remediation that I'm in contact with the leaseholders of. So, very soon, people will be out of this situation. But, where they find themselves in difficulty, then there is a scheme where we will buy them out, and we are now buying people out. You need to publicise that. We will certainly put it on social media again. Actually, lots of people aren't on social media. It's on the websites and we write out through Rent Smart Wales to draw it to people's attention and so on. If you can help me get that out to people, then please do. Please tell them to apply if they're in those circumstances because we're very happy to help them.
I'm very happy with what we've been able to do here in Wales. It has taken far too long, I completely agree, but that's because, whether people like it or not, this has been an absolute nightmare of complexity. I think we've finally got somewhere. The only people who will now not be in the system are people who have not put in an expression of interest. So, please make sure that anyone you're talking to has checked that their building has put in an expression of interest. That's absolutely imperative; there's no route to payment without putting in an expression of interest. Then they will go through the system. If they're an orphan building, they'll get included, and if they're not then we'll contact the responsible people and get the surveys done and so on. We're reimbursing people for the cost of surveys that were undertaken before we came in, provided they meet our requirements, which are that we can rely on the survey, that it was properly tendered and so on, all the things you'd expect. I'm looking again to see if we can reimburse people for other costs that they've incurred. I'm not yet able to say so because it depends on how those costs were incurred and so on.
So, actually, Janet, I think we've done an all right job. I absolutely have sympathy for the people who have lived through this for years and years and years, but we have now got a system where they should be able to sell their house, because people can get a mortgage on it, or they can sell it to us if they're in financial hardship, or indeed they can sit tight and we will remediate the buildings very shortly. That's where we are, and I'm very pleased to say it.
The public discourse on this scandal has revolved around who is responsible for the remedial work. Therefore, as a final question, I’d like to ask the Minister what mechanism is in place to resolve disputes with developers on detailed issues in specific buildings. Who will regulate the dispute process? What is the mechanism for the resolution of disputes? And in terms of the legal documents that will be submitted as part of this process, what real legal leverage will they have in the dispute? Thank you.
I'm quite pleased with where we've ended up. I'm very, very sorry that it's taken so long. We have actually been continuously working on it for years now—well, since the appalling events of Grenfell. The next piece, which you didn't ask me about, but which I'll say anyway, Dirprwy Lywydd, testing your patience, is that, obviously, we need to get the new Act in place that puts the obligations onto the right responsible people, so that we don't have this in the future.
I will concluding by quoting Sir Wyn's statement that the role of the president of Welsh Tribunals
'is not and should not be introspective...I have benefitted substantially from the willingness of colleagues in England, Northern Ireland and Scotland to share with me aspects of their ways of working'
and by thanking him—and I will conclude here—for his six years in this role, and wishing him every future success in his life as he goes forward. Thank you.
During our session, we also heard Sir Wyn's assessment as to why some of the Welsh tribunals had received a substantial increase in applications recently, whilst others had seen a significant decrease. Whilst he didn't share with us his hope that these decreases did not suggest that people may not be able to access justice—there could be other reasons—we do look forward to hearing from Sir Wyn's successor on whether these figures have any danger of turning into a trend, and what steps then will be taken in response.
Sir Wyn also told us about some of the challenges faced in appointing members of the Welsh tribunals, and he shared his very strong view that a tribunals centre, located in Wales, that could bring these people together and give that critical mass, could go quite some way to helping overcome some of these challenges. So, I'd welcome the Counsel General's thoughts on that.
It's also important that we look again at some of the structures. I agree with what's been said this afternoon about the devolution of justice. Certainly, we hear some speeches from my left in this Chamber—from my right politically—against the devolution of justice, as if we're looking at driving some sort of wedge between the countries of the United Kingdom, that we want to separate, in some ways the—[Interruption.] You should listen to what I'm about to say; you'd learn something. In terms of addressing how we work together, what Sir Wyn said—[Interruption.] You haven't read the report. What he said at committee was that the way in which the tribunals worked together and learned from each other in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales was important. It is important that we work together. It is important that we learn from each other. But we can only work together and learn from each other if we have the freedom to take decisions free of each other as well. That is the point that somebody who's got far more experience of these matters was saying to us. I would suggest that Members would listen to that voice of experience.
In welcoming Sir Gary Hickinbottom to the role in the next few weeks, he is inheriting a system that has been in very good health, that has been maintained as a consequence of the work of the retiring president. But he also, of course, is inheriting a quite formidable list of challenges. The reform that the Counsel General spoke about is important. Sir Wyn also spoke about the location and the structures of the judiciary and the way in which judicial members of the tribunal are able to work together. I think he made some very good points to the committee, and I would encourage the Counsel General to read the transcript of that committee in order to refresh his own views of these matters.
In closing, Presiding Officer, it is impossible to look at these matters and to debate this report without an overview of the structures of governance. It is impossible to find any senior member of the judiciary who believes that the current structure of governance of justice does Wales and does the people of Wales any good at all. The sooner it is reformed from top to bottom, and the sooner these matters are devolved to this country, the better for us all.
With regard to the Welsh language, I'm very much aware of that. I think a big issue on it is developing the confidence of people to actually participate within the court system, within the tribunal system. In many ways, they are an ideal model for the use of the Welsh language within that, because they have a certain less formality to them. But it is important that that is encouraged and supported. I raised it when I met with Sir Wyn Williams that there was an important issue there. He's confident, actually, that they have the chairs and the capacity to actually accommodate it. What is important is the encouragement and support for some of those tribunals to be held through the medium of the Welsh language.
Llywydd, you've been very generous with me; I think I've probably gone on for far too long on some of these. The important question, of course, that has been raised is in terms of timescale, and so on. It's for the First Minister to make a statement, I think in July, in terms of the legislative programme. But I think the Welsh Government is clear that the reform needs to take place within this Senedd. Legislation will be brought forward. There will, no doubt, be announcements that are made in due course. The White Paper can, of course, continue in any event, and I'm sure there'll be further details in the very near future.
Just one thing to conclude on, and that, of course, is the reference to the Thomas commission on the devolution of justice, and so on. Clearly, we are in a changing environment. The whole approach, I think, to justice, delivering justice and delivering justice better is at the core of it. The position we have with tribunals gives the opportunity to create that embryonic structure, really, with a set of tribunals, part of the administrative judicial system that has come to us on an ad hoc basis. What we are doing is creating not only a judicial system that will be of the highest excellence, but also that will create, as you said, the first ever, in the history of Wales, appellate structure. Diolch, Llywydd.
Llywydd, the report provides a welcome insight into the steady progress and strong commitment across Wales to ALN reform. This is consistent with the feedback from the national ALN implementation lead and steering group. As part of the ALN transformation programme, we have invested in a comprehensive package of awareness-raising activities to support workforce development. This includes a professional learning offer for all teachers to promote person-centred practice and differentiated learning to close learner gaps and respond to the needs of learners.
Lastly, Llywydd, I want to refer to the findings in the report, that children and young people from deprived backgrounds were disproportionately affected by the pandemic. Low levels of attendance in schools and pupil referral units, and among our most disadvantaged learners, was a key concern highlighted within the annual report. This is a huge concern for me. As you know, above all else, our national mission is to improve standards and aspirations for all by tackling the impact of poverty on attainment. The annual report very helpfully highlights key features of the work of providers who have been effective at tackling the impact of poverty and disadvantage on their learners. We need to learn from these providers and share that across the system. The pupil development grant has had a key part to play in supporting this agenda, and we will build upon existing effective practice by ensuring that we target the funding as effectively as possible. Year on year, we have extended the pupil development grant, with funding for 2023-24 now at around £130 million. In addition, community-focused schools are also at the heart of our agenda to tackle the impact of poverty on attainment. Our ambition is for all schools in Wales to be community-focused schools, responding to the needs of their communities, building a strong partnership with families, and collaborating effectively with other services. We have also been increasing the number of family engagement officers employed by schools to focus on improving pupil attendance.
Llywydd, there are many findings within the annual report. I have picked out just a few to begin our debate. I am grateful, once again, to the chief inspector for producing this report. It is only by capturing and sharing such learning, and tackling the issues and challenges, that we will continue to build the best education system for all learners in Wales.
We in the Welsh Conservatives acknowledge that a National Association of Head Teachers Cymru report from November 2021 highlighted that 92 per cent of school leaders believed that funding for pupils with special education needs in their schools was insufficient, and that 94 per cent believed that the funding was insufficient to meet the needs of reforms, and so call for funding for pupils with SEN in their schools to be increased. We want the Welsh Government to take steps to ensure that children are identified as having ALN far sooner than they currently are, so that they can join waiting lists quicker, and sooner get the help that they require. It's not rocket science, but it's having a massive effect on ALN and non-ALN learners in classrooms up and down Wales.
As with previous reports, leaders confirmed that they continue to face significant challenges around the recruitment and retention of suitably qualified and experienced staff. This is a Welsh Government staffing crisis that only appears to be getting worse, not better, and something that, once again, we've brought up in this Chamber time and time again.
There are so many more points of this report that I could go over from the serious issues in Welsh-medium education to the mental health crisis sweeping our schools, but I can see that time is quickly running out. Overall, we have a report that clearly shows that Welsh education has a long way to go to claw back from the damage that the pandemic has caused. However, after 25 years of failure and neglect from this Labour Government propped up by Plaid Cymru, and a budget that cuts education funding in real and cash terms, I do not hold out much hope.
You've also referred, as is clearly stated in the report, to the impact of the pandemic in terms of mental health—we've already discussed attendance—and the additional funding that's been allocated to that. But one of the things that schools mentioned is the challenges regarding their current budgets in terms of continuing with some of the additional provision that they've been able to offer. For example, counselling in schools; we know that some schools provide that service, and others are entirely dependent on services outwith schools, such as the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. How are we going to ensure that that experience, regarding access to services, is consistent wherever you may live in Wales? And certainly, there are solutions there regarding attendance and so on, and we need to see where it is possible to get those services in schools and how a school is able to do more than a conventional school in terms of offering that support and that it can make a difference, particularly in those areas where, perhaps, there are social issues that mean that there is a disproportionate impact.
I'd also like to touch on the Welsh language. We've seen specifically in the report the inconsistency with regard to the Welsh language in English-medium schools. There is going to be a great deal of emphasis on the Welsh-medium education Bill certainly in that regard, but do you think that that criticism is fair at the moment? Do you think that sufficient measures are going to be taken via the Welsh-medium education Bill to tackle that? Careers advice is certainly something that I would like to see certainty on and that that should be something that the Government is going to tackle further.
I know that I'm out of time. That just demonstrates how many important issues are raised in this report, and I hope that we will be able to work together as a Senedd to ensure that we can implement these recommendations and ensure that the Government has the funding too to tackle these issues, because, clearly, there are genuine challenges with regard to education that are outlined here, and it's up to us to get solutions now.
I sincerely hope that Estyn's commentary around leadership, evaluation of teaching, means that Estyn itself will undertake some developmental work on this, as it is suggestive of a fundamental issue that requires universal understanding of the issues and potential ways forward. It is important to know what 'good' looks like. The Welsh Government needs to ensure that there is a clear communication between teachers, learners and school leaders as to what constitutes effective teaching and learning, and this does continue around assessment, initial teacher training, the new curriculum and ALN reform. It is vital that this work is done in a sensitive and progressive manner. We only have to look at the tragic circumstances of a recent Ofsted inspection in Newbury that saw the very tragic death of headteacher Ruth Perry to know that all involved in making judgments must offer accountable and clear communication to those that they sit in judgment upon.
And I wish to state, finally, that teachers are human beings who have offered their lives, their energy and their careers not just to future generations but to Wales and all of our collective futures.