Plenary

The next item, therefore, is questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services. The first question is from Joel James.

The Welsh Government has set fair, equal and consistent expectations on the delivery of general medical services to people across Wales, using both contractual levers and by working with the profession to embed the GMS access commitment, to ensure everyone is directed to the right care to meet their needs, from the first time they call their GP practice.

Thank you, Minister. Constituents complain to me that they have been unable to make routine appointments with the Forest View Medical Centre in Treorchy, struggling to even get hold of them on the phone, which is causing considerable distress for people who need access to GP services. Their online appointment system and phone consultation service are almost always booked up, which means that routine appointments have to be made more than four weeks in advance. Cases have been reported to me where, due to the failure to access routine GP appointments, patients have then ended up needing emergency appointments due to rapidly deteriorating health. I've written to the health board chief executive and to the practice itself, and their responses are fairly standard, in that they're doing all that they can and are trying to implement better systems of working. But the truth is, the practice is overwhelmed with the needs and the size of the community it serves, and this is reflected among many other surgeries throughout my region. I'm conscious of the efforts by yourself to promote community pharmacies and streamline triage services, and I do believe that the practice is making every effort it can to see patients. But with this in mind, Minister, what thoughts have you given to improving the experience of patients when accessing appointment services, and what consideration has been given to the effect on GP staff morale and retention when dealing with such high volumes? Thank you.

Thanks very much, Joel. You'll be aware that the demands on our GP practices have been significantly increasing in recent months and years. I am aware of the particular issue in relation to the Forest View medical practice, and the difficulty in people getting access to what they, frankly, should be able to get access to. There is this new contract now; there are expectations in terms of delivering that contract. Because there are some examples where that contract doesn't look like it's going to be met—and don't forget that the new contract only formally started in April—what's happened, in particular with this practice, is that there will be an expectation that they will submit regular updates around their action plan, on a fortnightly basis. I know that they are actively trying to recruit additional GPs and team members, and that they're trying to use social media channels to explain to their patients what they've done in response to their concerns. But I am concerned to hear of the level of inaccess to Forest View medical practice, and I can assure you that my officials will make sure that the health board keeps on top of this issue.

We continue to provide Gwent and Cwm Taf Morgannwg regional partnership boards with nearly £3.9 million annually to support the implementation of the dementia action plan vision, and to develop a joint health and social care approach to dementia support.

Thank you for that answer, Minister. Last week marked Dementia Action Week, which this year focused on the importance of an accurate and timely diagnosis. Dementia awareness is something that's close to my heart, and I know it's something close to the Minister's heart as well. There are estimated to be around 50,000 people living with dementia in Wales, and this figure could be close to 100,000 people by 2050. A diagnosis is instrumental in facilitating access to care and medication that supports people to live well with dementia. Nine in 10 people living with dementia surveyed by the Alzheimer's Society Cymru believe that a diagnosis has benefited them, with pathways and doors opening. Getting the message out about an awareness about the symptoms is crucial. What more can the Welsh Government and others do to ensure that emphasising diagnosis early plays a key part in the Welsh Government's dementia action plan, and also, in its plans for social care reform?

Can I thank Jayne Bryant for that question, and acknowledge her long-standing commitment to campaigning for improved dementia care? You are absolutely right about the importance of early diagnosis, and awareness raising is really very important for that. Weeks like we had last week—the dementia awareness week—are really important initiatives in raising awareness. There are also, as you probably know, helpful resources available from a number of our third sector partners, and we're also committed to supporting the dementia-friendly communities initiative, which can not just raise awareness, but also help to tackle the stigma.

Some of the early signs and symptoms of dementia include memory loss, difficulty concentrating, planning or organising, problems with language and communication, misunderstanding of what is being seen, being confused about time or place, and mood changes or difficulty controlling emotions. I would like to take this opportunity to reiterate that if someone is worried about themselves or someone close to them having these symptoms, please contact your GP to discuss this further and to get an appropriate referral.

I'd like to begin by saying thank you to Jayne Bryant for tabling this important question this afternoon. I can speak on behalf of myself, as well as all the Welsh Conservatives, in saying that we are absolutely 100 per cent behind this particular cause that you've mentioned today.

Minister, it's really important to note the importance of high-quality, accessible data in ensuring that everyone has access to a timely and accurate diagnosis, particularly when it comes to dementia. There are over 100 types of dementia out there, and, whilst Alzheimer's is the most common form, there are also other types such as vascular, Lewy body and frontotemporal. We're also hearing more about young onset dementia, which is when someone under the age of 65 develops dementia. A survey by the Alzheimer's Society last year found that 17 per cent of people with dementia did not have a subtype diagnosis detailing the specific type of dementia that they actually have.

NHS Wales does not currently collect or report the number of people with a formal diagnosis of dementia centrally, and does not publish diagnosis data by subtype. Minister, do you agree with me that improved access to subtype diagnosis data will not only provide us with clarity on the picture of dementia here in Wales, but will also help us with futureproofing the diagnostic system ahead of future disease, modifying treatments that require individuals to have an early and specific subtype diagnosis, in order to inform treatment options going forward?

Thank you, Natasha. You are right to highlight that, of course, dementia is a term that covers a wide range of conditions. Sometimes we forget that. It is very important that we maintain accurate data on diagnosis, and guidance has been issued to the NHS in Wales on actually recording the different subtypes of dementia. And also, as part of the work that we're taking forward through the strategy, and through our dementia action plan, where we have five work streams, one of which is around memory assessment services, there is also a work stream as part of that that is designed to improve data collection.

My grandmother suffered with dementia in her final few years, so I know how frightening the process can be for someone going through this and for people around them if they don't understand what's happening to them. That's why, as we've heard, having an accurate and timely diagnosis is so important, isn't it? But there are barriers, and you've set this out, Minister, preventing people from getting these diagnoses, like a lack of understanding of the symptoms. People living in rural communities, people whose first language isn't English, and people who are living in poorer areas are all less likely to receive a diagnosis early in the disease, which means that those people will feel more alone, more trapped in their heads, with feelings that they don't understand or don't recognise, and more scared and alone. So do you agree with me that there should be a fair access to dementia diagnosis for everyone? And would you consider introducing an annual public awareness messaging campaign, highlighting the symptoms and where people can go for help, so that fewer people in Wales will go through this feeling scared and alone, and will know exactly where to go for help?

Thank you, Delyth. You raise a number of important points there. As I think you're probably aware, I myself have had a family member who's been through that, and I know not just how traumatising it is, but how isolating it can be for families. So it is really important to have that diagnosis, to have the support around people living with dementia. We do need to do more around diagnosis. That's why we've got the NHS delivery unit, who are currently undertaking a snapshot assurance review of memory assessment services across Wales, and we're going to receive the national report of that in either this month or next month. I should say as well that we've invested an extra £3 million to improve diagnosis and to support people as well while they are waiting for diagnosis, and that's recurring funding that we've made available.

In terms of what you've said about an awareness campaign, I think most people have got a reasonable awareness of the symptoms of dementia. I think there's probably more an issue there about fear and stigma in coming forward to ask for help, which I completely understand, because we went through that as a family ourselves. But I'm very happy to take that away and look at what more we can do in terms of our public messaging to encourage people to come forward for diagnosis and then to access support.

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

Diolch, Llywydd. Minister, people across north Wales are pretty angry at the moment about what is happening in the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board. I was given an anonymous copy of the Ernst & Young forensic report of accounting issues at the board, and I have to say it is absolutely damning. Its findings include false accounting and the manipulation of documents that amount to fraud. These were done in the knowledge of senior members of staff at the health board, including the chief executive and the finance director. The junior staff who pushed back against these appalling practices were overruled by their superiors and there, then, were deliberate efforts to hide those actions from Audit Wales and the forensic investigators from Ernst & Young. It absolutely stinks. The report still isn't in the public domain—it should be published—in spite of the significant public interest in these issues. I want to know what action the Welsh Government is now taking to ensure that all those responsible for the behaviour identified in that report are going to be held accountable for their actions.

Thanks very much. I was one of the few people who did have an early access to the report, and I've got to agree that it did make extremely sobering reading, which absolutely needs to be acted upon. As has been said in this Chamber on a number of occasions, this was not our report, and so I can't ask for it to be published. It was a report that was commissioned by the health board, and they have to determine what they're going to do. I have spoken to both the interim chief executive and the chair of the health board about the action that will be undertaken as a result of this report, and they have both reassured me that the health board is progressing the management of the issues that are raised in the EY report in line with their existing procedures and policies. My concern throughout has been that I don't want to do anything that will compromise or prejudice in any way the ability of the board to pursue the actions that they should and need to do.

Minister, it's been four months since that report was published. I cannot fathom why, in that period of four months, those individuals who were responsible for these actions have not been dismissed from that health board. Not only are these unprofessional practices for those who are registered as chartered accountants and with other professional bodies, but it actually goes beyond the health board itself. We know, for example, that documentation to obtain goods and services was falsified in order to award a contract of nearly £1.8 million to a company, Lightfoot Solutions, and that company, Lightfoot Solutions, colluded in the altering of documentation in order to get that award. We know that a purchase order was drafted that shouldn't have been drafted, deliberately designed to fail in order to avoid proper scrutiny, by the head of procurement services at NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership. Now, I don't know whether these individuals are still in post or under investigation, but this is not just about Betsi; this is about the culture in the wider NHS. I want to know what action is now being taken to make sure that Lightfoot Solutions, this company that has colluded, which has also had contracts awarded to it in other parts of Wales, not just the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board—. What is being done to make sure that we never engage with that organisation again? What is being done in terms of the NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership role in this sort of behaviour? It's wider than just Betsi, Minister.

Thanks very much. My understanding is that the key individuals named in this report have been suspended, and, clearly, they have legal employment rights. The key thing for me is that we've got to follow the right process so that any system that needs to be followed is not undermined. I can assure you that, from the report, the Welsh Government was exonerated, that there wasn't any suggestion that Welsh Government was in any way implicated in any of this. But I have asked my director general to make sure that we look at the report to see what, if any, action we need to take as a Government if there are any broader implications for us as a Government.

There are clearly broader implications. You've had this report for four months, Minister—four months it's been lying around. I find it, frankly, very disturbing that you're only just starting to have these conversations about whether there are wider implications when, quite clearly, the report implies that there are wider implications because this goes beyond Betsi into an organisation that has multimillion-pound contracts across the Welsh NHS, and also into the heart of the NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership, with the head of procurement—not a junior member of staff, the head of procurement—in that organisation inappropriately drafting purchase invoices.

I think the public, quite rightly, will want to have some assurances that the Welsh Government is now going to look at every single health board in Wales to make sure that the sorts of practices—which didn't just occur in a single year in the Betsi Cadwaladr health board; the report refers to this being at least across a period of two financial years—that occurred there haven't occurred elsewhere, because, frankly, the involvement of the head of procurement services at the NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership suggests that this might have been replicated in other places too. So, when will you publish an action plan as to the work that you're now going to commission to make sure that these matters are properly investigated and, where necessary, referred to the police for criminal investigation too?

Thanks. Well, I can assure you that the report hasn’t just been lying around; there have been extensive investigations by the NHS counter-fraud office to see if there needed to be any police follow-up in terms of criminal action. They concluded that that didn’t need to be done, but, obviously, that has only recently come out, and that’s why it’s only now that we can follow up as a Welsh Government, and, as I say, I have already instructed my officials to look at whether there is anything we need to do in respect of lessons that we can learn.

I do think that it’s important that people in north Wales understand that, despite the very sobering reason, actually, no money was lost to the NHS—[Interruption.]—money hasn’t been lost to the NHS, and I think what the public in north Wales are concerned with at the moment is delivery of services. And I’m very pleased to say that, in respect of delivery of services, I’ve just been able to send out a written statement to ensure that the public understand, and the public in north Wales, that, today, we have been able to conclude with the NHS trade unions a pay offer that they have accepted—a two-year pay offer for 'Agenda for Change' staff. So, I’m very pleased that those negotiations, despite being very challenging, have now come to a conclusion and that we are in a situation where the public will understand that, actually, the threat of strikes that has been hanging over us for a long time—there is still an issue with a couple of unions that, obviously, we need to continue discussing—. The collective view of the trade union has been that they will accept the pay offer, and I’m very pleased about that.

The Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Rhun ap Iorwerth.

Diolch, Llywydd. Yet again today, we have to focus on Betsi Cadwaladr. Two weeks ago, Plaid Cymru raised concerns in this Chamber about the implications of the Ernst and Young report—raised the same concerns that we just heard about from the Conservative spokesperson. Given how sobering the Minister says that that report was when she read it four months ago, perhaps she could put on the record what advice she immediately sought from officials, having read it. But now a former independent member of the board explaining that he was intimately involved in that EY investigation has now called for a police investigation, saying he believes there is clear and incontrovertible evidence that a number of crimes were carried out. It’s a powerful and damning indictment of the situation regarding Betsi Cadwaladr. I welcome the statement from North Wales Police saying they’re assessing the situation. I, too, call on them to initiate a full investigation.

Now, the First Minister told the Senedd that, with the NHS counter-fraud department having decided no criminal threshold had been reached, this was now only an internal matter for Betsi, but given the seriousness of the allegations now published, and given the doubts about potential conflicts of interest, conflicts of interest that the independent member suggests make it impossible for Welsh Government or its various health agencies to be able to comment objectively, will the Minister now agree that it’s beyond question that the police must investigate too, and that that investigation must have the full support of the Welsh Government?

Thanks very much. The police will determine if a criminal investigation is required, and they’ve already said that they’re looking at this and it’s not up to me to tell the police whether a criminal investigation is required; that is something that they will need to determine themselves.

I think it is important that there is an understanding of how the different organisations in Wales work. So, the NHS counter-fraud service is operationally independent from NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership, but it is hosted by the NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership as part of the Velindre NHS trust. So, it’s basically somewhere where they’re parked—somebody has to do their HR, somebody has to do their accounting, somebody has to do all of the other bits and pieces, but they are operationally independent. The counter-fraud office is made up of a team of experienced investigators, and they have a lot of experience in looking at serious, complex, large-scale crime cases, and they do give a specialist independent investigation resource to health boards. They have come to a conclusion. If the police want to look at it and come to a different conclusion, then obviously that will be a matter for them.

I've highlighted where I believe and others believe the conflicts of interest are here, and again I can't see why the Welsh Government wouldn't say, 'We would support a full police investigation as a means to bring back trust in the system.' The impact of all of this, of course, is to further undermine trust in Betsi. It affects staff morale. It affects patients. Our position is clear and has been for some time: I think we need a fresh start. Can the Minister answer this? And I know she'd rather avoid reorganisation—we all would. But isn't there a point where she is willing to say, 'Enough is enough'? We need a plan in place at least for new health structures in the north. If she does, great—let's at least start on that process to forming a plan B. If not, that worries me deeply. We can't go on like this. So, in order to help us out of the situation, we have to understand it. I've asked before and I'll ask again: isn't it time we had an independent investigation, an inquiry that can look transparently and forensically at what has happened in Betsi's past, so we can make plans for its future, but, more importantly, for the future of those staff working in it and the patients dependent on it?

Thanks very much. Well, part of the reason why I acted as I did is because I do believe that the board needed a fresh start, which is why we appointed new independent members to the board. There are 20,000 people who work for the health board, and I've got to tell you that this constant criticism is really sapping their morale. Now, I'm not going to reorganise, Rhun. That is not going to happen under my watch. You can keep harping on if you want, but it's not going to change my mind. I think you are undermining the people who you represent—the 2,000 people in Anglesey who are actually trying to get on with their day job.

Now, of course, I'm happy to be held to account. I'm held to account on a weekly basis here, very differently, let me point out, from the situation in England, where despite the fact that they have 21 hospitals in special measures equivalent—21—never, as far as I can tell, has there been a question on the floor of the house in the House of Commons on any one of those, and I am here week after week after week. So, I will respond—[Interruption.] But I am—[Interruption.] But I am—[Interruption.] I am accountable and I am here every single week.

Can we hear the Minister in her response? Thank you to the Minister.

The important thing for me is that we have had a fresh start and that we do turn over a new leaf, but we can't actually do that until we get to a point where all of this dreadful situation that we've seen in the past in Betsi is unearthed, and that we can then get to a point where—. We're very pleased now that we've got a new interim chief executive, and, from what I hear, the morale around the table at the top of the health board is in a very, very different place.

I'm aware from recent reports that some people may be being prescribed powerful medication following online private assessments in England or elsewhere. It does not follow that the NHS in Wales would continue to prescribe such medications, and a person's GP would need to be satisfied that it was safe and correct to do so.

Thank you. I'm sure many of us will have seen the recent Panorama programme that exposed the perverse consequences of giving people the right to a referral to a private provider in the English NHS, which has led to a proliferation of private companies, in Harley Street and elsewhere, all offering to give you an immediate answer, and offering you expensive drugs to go with it. Coincidentally, the day before that programme was broadcast, I was contacted by a new constituent, recently moved from England, armed with a prescription for drugs following a diagnosis for ADHD, who was astonished to be told by the new GP she’d registered with that she couldn't get these drugs until and unless she was appropriately diagnosed by a professional as to whether she really did have ADHD. I'm not making any judgment about whether that was the correct, appropriate medication or indeed diagnosis for this individual, but it tells you that there is a huge—. People are using the English NHS like it was a sweet shop, and just going in there and saying, 'I'll have some of that'. This is really serious, because it raises huge concerns amongst individuals who think that they need whatever it is they've been prescribed and, in many cases, are being asked to pay eye-watering sums to get these drugs privately. There are all sorts of consequences of this, and I just wondered how the Welsh NHS is dealing with this, given that we have a very porous border.

Thanks very much. Well, Jenny, I'm sure you'll understand that I can't comment on an individual case, but we would expect there to be continuity of care for any patient who moves to Wales, of course. But, in general, it would be the patient's GP who would determine whether a prescribed medicine should be given. And, of course, it's very different from England, because our prescriptions are for free in Wales, so we don't like to hand them out like sweeties. I think it's really important and, obviously, there are huge implications for that, especially when it comes to antibiotic medicines, and the last thing we want to do is to oversubscribe them.

But I do have real concerns about the Panorama programme and what that demonstrated, showing that individuals were being—. It was being suggested that they had conditions that they didn't have, which had profound implications for those individuals, and put them, perhaps, on a medical course that they needn't be on. So, it is something that, of course, we will need to ensure that we keep an eye on, and the implications for the Welsh NHS.

When it comes to being referred to private treatment by a health board or the NHS in Wales, I wonder if the Minister can guarantee that there is no postcode lottery in this regard across Wales. And the context of my question is that a constituent of mine, after waiting a considerable length of time for treatment on the NHS, decided to pay privately, despite the fact that they couldn't really afford to do so, but they made life choices because their heath and quality of life was important to them. That they accepted, reluctantly, but what was galling to them was, when they went for treatment, to find out that there were other patients waiting the same length of time in other parts of Wales who are being referred for private treatment by their health boards, and this, they felt, was particularly unfair. So, I wonder if the Minister can assure the Senedd that all health boards have adopted the same approach when it comes to referring patients from the Welsh NHS or Welsh health boards to private health services to avoid what appears to be a postcode lottery.

Thanks very much. Well, you'll be aware that health boards are independent. They make these judgments on the basis of the clinical needs of their population, and one of the things I hope you noticed last week, and we're pleased to see, is that the statistics office are now producing the waiting-list time on the basis of individual health boards, which I think is far more meaningful for the population in Wales. So, what Members will see from that is that some health boards are performing a lot better than others, which means that there will be some, perhaps, that need to wait longer than others. Obviously, we’re interested, as Welsh Government, to try and avoid a postcode lottery, so it's not fair that some people in some parts of Wales have to wait considerably longer than others. Part of the reason we've kept £50 million back is to make sure that we see a better consistency, but we've got to be careful not to reward the people who are not doing well either. So, this is quite a difficult balancing act, and something that we're trying to work through.

But in terms of private practice, we need to clear the backlog. At this point in time, I think that's a priority. If some health boards want to use private practices to help clear the backlog, then they're able to do that. What I can't determine is who goes where at what point in terms of referrals from a particular health board to a particular private practice.

We continue to work in partnership to retain existing nurses across south-west Wales, to recruit locally and attract new internationally trained healthcare professionals to the area. While recruitment and staffing challenges remain, the nursing workforce of the Swansea Bay University Health Board is at record high levels.

Thank you, Minister, for that answer. You'll be aware of Swansea Bay University Health Board's recent plan to recruit 900 nurses from overseas for four years, particularly from Kerala in south-west India. Of course, we're not opposed to recruitment like this in principle, and I also understand that the Welsh and UK Governments have committed not to take NHS staff from the areas with the worst struggles, but, in principle, there's still a moral argument about the impact on vulnerable patients in those countries where we go to take potential NHS staff from. It's not a sustainable solution for nursing staff in Wales either who are currently leaving the profession, and training places are failing to be taken up as a consequence. On top of this, we know that it's a problem that might get worse with staff leaving the profession. A health board report said that we have an ageing workforce profile in nursing, with 1,322 nurses and midwives currently over the age of 51, and could retire very soon, or over the next few years. So, in light of the shortages in domestic nursing, what steps are Welsh Government taking to address these serious problems and challenges in recruitment and training and encourage more students in Wales to take up nursing as a profession?

Well, I'm pleased to say that nursing training places have increased by 54 per cent over the last few years. So, they were 1,750 in 2017 and 2,701 in 2023. So, we're seeing an increase, and that's a good thing. The problem is, as you say, there are people who are leaving the profession. Now I, like you, was concerned about this moral dilemma: should we be taking people from poorer communities in India and places? I was very fortunate to meet with the health Minister for Kerala last year in south India, and she was actually encouraging us, if we wanted to take more nurses, whether that would be something that we might be interested in. Actually, I put it to her very straight: 'Why are you over-training people? Why are you offering these people? Don't you have a situation in India that you should be addressing?', and she was very, very clear—she said, 'In Kerala, we deliberately over-train because it's actually part of an economic development approach'. So, 30 per cent of Kerala's gross domestic product comes from remittances from overseas. So, it did put me into a slightly different place, so I was more comfortable than I may have been otherwise in relation to that.

So, I am pleased that, last year, 400 international nurses were recruited through the first phase of the national programme, and further international recruitment will take place this year.

I expect the health board to work with partners to ensure that there is sufficient capacity to meet the needs of the communities it serves. This includes ensuring the clinical model, configuration of services, and facilities are fit for purpose and provide equity of access to deliver the very best care to all patients.

Thank you, Minister, for your response. We've already heard today about the way in which the health board has been run; it's simply not fit for purpose for people who I represent in north Wales. Not only is the treatment that people receive substandard, but we heard again about the leaked report showing that auditors were being knowingly misled and documents being falsified by senior health board officials. It's this behaviour that has a direct impact on the health provision for the people I represent across the region and the quality of the care that they receive, and it's financial mismanagement like this that eventually leads to hospital wards such as the one at Tywyn eventually closing. And it's this closure at Tywyn that risks putting serious pressures on other parts of the health service in the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board area, and certainly makes it more difficult for our doctors and nurses and, ultimately, the residents I represent in my area. And when my residents see this money being wasted and documents being falsified, and then the impact it has on them in terms of services they receive, that's what really puts their backs up. So, Minister, why should north Wales residents have to deal with the negative impact of these ward closures, and what is being done to resolve this as quickly as possible?

Well, I was really pleased to visit Tywyn health centre on 12 May, because I knew that there were really serious issues there in relation to the closure of that facility temporarily. And you'll be aware that the reason for that closure was because of staffing challenges; it wasn't because there was any intention by anybody. And we, as a primary responsibility—. The health board's primary responsibility is to keep people safe and to make sure that there are safe staffing levels. There was a point in Tywyn when they went below the safe staffing levels and, therefore, there had to be a consequence to that.

Now, trying to recruit is difficult, but what you can't do is to constantly say, 'There's a problem in Betsi, there's a problem in Betsi, there's a problem in Betsi' and then think people are going to pour in their application forms, because that's not going to happen. There is a direct consequence to this constant talking down of Betsi—

It's not, it's called scrutiny.

I don't mind scrutiny, but there is a direct result to that, and that is that it's getting more difficult, potentially, to recruit. And that is something—[Interruption.]—and it's absolutely right, but there is a direct consequence, and I just think that it's important that people understand. And the people of Tywyn, when I spoke to the action committee there, they understood that message, even if you don't.

The Welsh Government has taken significant steps towards the integration of health and social care, including enshrining the duty to co-operate in legislation, establishing seven regional partnership boards and investing both revenue and capital funds in the development of new integrated models of health and social care.

Thank you, Deputy Minister. I'm not sure if the Chamber's aware, but I understand that the health Minister did visit Llandudno hospital last week. Now, I was part—[Interruption.] Anyway, I'm only sorry you didn't invite me along too, but hey-ho.

So, Deputy Minister, I sat, as many of us did, here, during the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014, if my memory serves me correctly, and in that Bill, there were great hopes that we would see better integration of health and social care. Ask anybody who has a relative or a constituent who now tries to get somebody out of hospital—we've still got a system whereby there are breaks, if you like, between people coming out, needing a care package, care package not available. I still do not believe that health and social care is any more integrated as of today than it was when that Bill received Royal Assent.

Now, the Minister will know, when visiting Llandudno hospital, that she herself, as a result of us requesting this, commissioned a six-month project in a specially configured Aberconwy ward. This was aimed mainly at easing pressure on beds in the main acute hospitals, and it worked really well in freeing up beds in the larger hospitals. Now, last winter—

Janet, can you ask your question, please?

Yes, okay. They wanted to do this again, but apparently, for them to be able to do it with the lack of staff, they needed to register with Care Inspectorate Wales. This just baffles me. So, Deputy Minister, what can you do to ensure that there is greater integration of health and social care? And, if there's a ward in what they used to call the cottage hospitals that will work well in taking off some burden and pressure off the bigger hospitals, can you perhaps work with the health Minister, so that, if they need to be registered at CIW, then fine? But let's get some common sense into practices that see people discharged from hospitals and then given the treatment and support they need at a time when there are very little social care packages left in many constituencies across Wales. Thank you.

Thank you, Janet, very much for that question. Certainly, the health Minister and I are working tirelessly on this issue. I would challenge what you say about there not being any further integration, because certainly as a result of the issues that you’ve referred to in terms of people waiting in hospitals in order to leave there, we created, working with the local authorities and the health boards, an additional nearly 700 beds that were either step-down beds or community packages, to directly address the issue that she raises. And of course, as a result of working to greater health and social care integration we have created the regional integration fund, the RIF fund, which has got an enormous number of projects that are working very closely between health and social care, and in fact north Wales is doing very well on these projects. The programme in north Wales comprised 40 projects across the six national models of care, and the total investment was £43 million. So, I certainly would contest what Janet says about there being no progress on integration. But we do know we’ve got further to go, I absolutely accept that. But we are on the way, and we are making progress.

Our vision for stroke services and improving outcomes has been set out in the stroke quality statement. The unique circumstances of mid Wales are reflected in plans being taken forward by the national stroke programme, led by the clinical lead for stroke and the stroke programme board.

Thank you, Minister, for your answer. You will of course know the sparse population of mid Wales, and the time it takes, of course, to get to hospital, especially for specialist services like stroke services, where, of course, time is of the essence in getting patients to hospital. We also know the population of mid Wales, of course, is an older population as well. Whilst those in the east of my constituency are close to the services in England, those in the west are not. So, given the strategic importance of Bronglais hospital’s services for the people of mid Wales, and also Brecon and Radnor, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire, it is absolutely important, considering the time-critical nature of stroke treatment. I wonder if the Minister could outline some further plans on how those stroke services at Bronglais hospital are going to be sustained and developed? This is, of course, a crucial service that Government, I hope, would support in line with, indeed, as the Minister has mentioned, the stroke quality statement.

Thanks very much. I think it's important that it's clinicians that lead on some of these things. So, it's got to be them that decide, 'Right, this is the most appropriate response in this particular area when a particular circumstance comes up.' So, as a politician it wouldn't be right to second-guess the best way to do that. So, it means that local commissioning, operational delivery, remains in the hands of the health board, but obviously they need to think regionally and cross border, in particular, in the area that you represent. I think what's important here is to ensure that people of all ages have the lowest possible risk. So, we've got to get ahead of the game where we can to reduce the chances of people getting stroke in the first place. We've got to get into this prevention space. That's how we're going to—. We've got to recognise people will have strokes, but the investment going in up front, that's where I think the clinicians need to give us a lead on where best to put our investment.

And finally, question 8, Vikki Howells.

We continue to provide sustained funding to support the provision of mental health services. In addition to its ring-fenced mental health allocation, health boards have received an additional £26.5 million of recurrent mental health funding over the last two years to continue to improve mental health support.

Thank you for your answer, Deputy Minister. I recently met with the '111 press 2' team in Cwm Taf Morgannwg, where I was told about the high numbers of people the service had already helped to access mental health support. It was wonderful to meet the team to find out about the different skills that they brought to their roles and to feel their enthusiasm and commitment to what is a really important job. I was impressed that this was all done via a single point of contact, reducing stress for people who need help, and also by the organic way access to the service has grown via word of mouth. What plans does the Welsh Government have, working with local health boards and other partners, to raise awareness of the immediate mental health support available via '111 press 2'?

Can I thank Vikki for her supplementary and say how pleased I am that she has had the opportunity to go and see '111 press 2' in action? I'm absolutely delighted that that service is now operational 24 hours a day in all parts of Wales. At a national level, we've received already over 12,000 calls, and in just Cwm Taf there have been over 650 people who have contacted the service already. It really is 'no wrong door' in action, and that has been made possible by this Government's commitment to prioritise funding for mental health.

The Member is absolutely right that we do need to do what we can to raise awareness of the new service, and there is a full communications campaign planned. I'm going to be making a statement on it here in the Senedd next month, and we'll be doing all that we can to promote it. It is a single point of access, but it's also, vitally, a single point of access for professionals as well, who can get in touch if they are concerned about someone's mental health. So, it really is the embodiment of 'no wrong door' in action, and I'm delighted that the Member has had an opportunity to go and see it for herself.

Thank you to the Minister and Deputy Ministers.

I've received notification that the Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales wishes to move a motion that the Senedd considers further amendments to the Agriculture (Wales) Bill at Report Stage, in accordance with Standing Order 26.45. I call on the Minister to formally move the motion.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. In accordance with Standing Order 26.45, the Senedd is asked to agree to consider further amendments to the Agriculture (Wales) Bill at Report Stage, and I formally move.

I understand that the reason for the motion being laid is to withdraw amendment 55, submitted in my name when we went through Stage 3 of the agriculture Bill last week. While I'm disappointed that this is the case, I understand why, on its own, that amendment is causing some distress to the Government, in terms of delivering on the agriculture Bill. The purpose of the amendment was to ensure that large corporations purchasing Welsh agricultural land and getting public money to plant trees was prohibited in the new agricultural scheme, and I know that there could be concern that new entrants, with this amendment being passed, wouldn't be supported. However, had the whole suite of my amendments been passed when we went through Stage 2, I'm sure that that would have been averted, but I completely understand the reason for this motion here today. Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd.

I call on the Minister to reply.

Thank you. Well, yes, as Sam Kurtz is very well aware, following the Stage 3 debate, amendment 55 was inserted and a new provision in section 9, paragraph 3, 'Further provision about support under section 8', was, therefore, placed in the Bill. It does cause and create really strict restrictions for where financial support is provided, not just the scenario that Sam Kurtz has just presented the Senedd with. The provisions will have significant consequences for the ability of Welsh Ministers to provide support to the farming sector, and that does indeed include new entrants, commons, shared farmers, as well as the wider supply chain and other agricultural businesses.

The Agriculture (Wales) Bill has to work, especially in relation to those beneficiaries whose actions are undertaken in the very best interests of the agricultural sector. The Bill does need to ensure assistance can be provided to the right people, and that does include providing support to new farmers and to those who may choose to farm on common and, of course, tenanted land—that's very important, because so much of our land here in Wales is undertaken by tenant farmers—or, indeed, on land that is owned in whole or in part by them.

I've had some detailed discussions, I just want to assure Members, with stakeholders over the past few days, and they agree with the Government's position that there is a need for the agriculture Bill to work for all farmers, not create barriers to the support that can be provided. Diolch.

The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? [Objection.] There is objection. I will therefore defer voting under this item until voting time.

No topical question has been accepted.

We will therefore move on to the 90-second statements. First of all, Elin Jones.

Here in this Senedd, we regularly debate petitions where 10,000 people or more have signed to support a cause. Imagine a petition of 390,296 signatures, all women, all signed by hand, from every community in Wales, and all collected exactly 100 years ago. This petition was kickstarted at a public conference on the women of Wales and world peace, which took place in Aberystwyth on Tuesday 23 May 1923, 100 years ago yesterday. The gathering was presided over by Mrs Annie Hughes-Griffiths, Chair of the Welsh League of Nations Union. The petition called on the women of America to join the women of Wales to

'hand down to the generations which come after us, the proud heritage of a warless world.'

There were organising committees to collect signatures in every county, and, by early 1924, a delegation of four Welsh women had taken the petition to America on a two-month peace tour, and presented the petition to the US President, Calvin Coolidge. The petition was then kept in the Smithsonian museum, and its story disappeared from our national memory until very recently, and, with considerable effort by peace campaigners and national organisations, all seven miles of the peace petition papers have been returned for the centenary from the Smithsonian to the national library. The signatures will be digitised over the next few months and then we can check whether our mam-gus or aunties signed that glorious petition for peace 100 years ago. And in the spring of next year, when we celebrate the centenary of the petition’s arrival in America, why don’t we debate on the floor of this Senedd the women of Wales’s peace petition of 1923 to 1924? It’s as relevant today as it was then.

Next, John Griffiths.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. This year, the Severn Area Rescue Association, also known as SARA, are marking their fiftieth anniversary. They are a volunteer lifeboat and inland search and rescue charity, with seven lifeboat and rescue stations along the length of the River Severn. Each year, SARA are called out over 100 times. This includes covering callouts in Newport East, along the estuary and River Usk towards the city centre and indeed past my constituency office. Last Friday, I was pleased to join the SARA team to learn more about their operations, their plans for the fiftieth anniversary, and their aspirations going forward.

The Severn estuary and River Usk are hazardous places, with strong currents and fast-changing tides. That’s why the SARA volunteers are highly skilled and trained twice a week, so that, when they respond to a call, they know exactly what they need to do.

Dirprwy Lywydd, I want to put on record my thanks to everyone at SARA, and indeed their sister organisations right across the length and breadth of Wales, for everything they do to keep our communities safe and away from danger. I wish SARA a happy fiftieth anniversary and look forward to working with them further in the future.

And finally, Cefin Campbell.

Dirprwy Lywydd, the villages and towns of Carmarthenshire are now a swathe of red, white and green, as the town of Llandovery prepares to welcome the Urdd National Eisteddfod to the area next week. Could I, therefore, take this opportunity to congratulate the local appeal committees across Carmarthenshire for their tireless efforts over the past few years to raise funds to welcome Europe’s biggest youth festival to the Towy valley, with more than £300,000 having been raised already? And there is no doubt that there will be an unrivalled welcome in the town of Williams Pantycelyn, Twm Sion Cati and Ficer Pritchard, with the weather looking very favourable to welcome Mr Urdd and the tens of thousands of young competitors from all over Wales and beyond. There is no doubt that the festival will be a huge boost to the Welshness of the town and the county, and that in the face of a number of challenges faced by the language in our rural communities.

And in speaking of Llandovery, it would be impossible not to congratulate the town’s rugby club on their success last weekend as they won the Welsh premier league cup for the first time in their history. And although the game was played here in Cardiff, it was the drovers team that won, and I understand that the celebrations are still going on in the town of Llandovery. So, hearty congratulations to everyone, and I hope to see you all at the Urdd Eisteddfod next week, where a warm welcome awaits you in Carmarthenshire.

The next item is a motion to suspend Standing Orders to allow a debate on NNDM8276. And I call on a member of the Business Committee to formally move the motion. Darren Millar.

I move.

The proposal is to suspend Standing Orders. Does any Member object? No. Therefore, the motion is agreed, in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

The next item is a motion to elect Chairs and Members to the Wales COVID-19 Inquiry Special Purpose Committee. I call on a member of the Business Committee to formally move. Darren Millar.

I move.

Just a few words from me. We will support this motion today, because, after all, we co-submitted the motion requesting the establishment of such a committee. It's important to note, however, our shock once again that the establishment of a cross-party committee, which will work across parties, has happened as a result of an agreement between Labour and the Conservatives.

I note that, whilst I questioned the circumstances in which this deal was made, both Conservatives and Labour chose to add the word 'grubby', and both responded with a denial that there had been a 'grubby' deal—their choice of words. And now we see, of course, that the deal even involves a very unusual joint chairmanship. Now, we know what people are asking: 'What are Labour, responsible for the COVID response in Wales, and the Conservatives, responsible for the UK COVID response, trying to achieve here by keeping such a very tight control on this special purpose committee?' But as I say, we supported having the committee; Adam Price, I know, will make a very valuable contribution to the work of the committee; and whilst this is not what we wanted—we still believe that we need a full independent Welsh COVID inquiry—our priority now is to seek answers for those COVID bereaved, who deserve answers, and to ensure that lessons are learnt.

I call on Darren Millar to reply to the debate.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I would remind everybody that the reason that this motion has been tabled today is because of an agreement at the cross-party Business Committee, and that is why it is on the agenda. There have been no 'grubby deals', as Rhun ap Iorwerth would like to describe them; there was a transparent debate in this Chamber, which agreed to take forward a piece of work between the leader of the opposition—the only opposition, I would add—in this Chamber and the First Minister. That discussion took place, the outcome of those discussions was that this committee should be formed, and that there should be a co-chairing arrangement. I would draw a distinction between co-chairing arrangements and joint committee chairing arrangements, which is something that Plaid Cymru itself has asked for in the past. Indeed, there was a suggestion from Plaid Cymru that the Finance Committee should be co-chaired, for example, between the Conservatives and Plaid, in the past. So, these are novel arrangements. I trust that this committee will be able to get on with its work. There are quite rightly, understandably, many questions that the COVID-bereaved families and other people across Wales need to have answers to, and that committee, working with the UK-wide inquiry, will hope to deliver the answers that people need.

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

Item 5 today is a debate on the general principles of the Food (Wales) Bill, and I call on the Member in charge to move the motion. Peter Fox.

Thank you, Deputy Llywydd. May I first remind Members of my declaration of interest? As you know, I am a farmer.

Deputy Llywydd, I'm delighted to move the motion on the agenda in my name, and to open this debate. I'd like to start by thanking the Commission for the support it wrapped around me, and specific thanks go to Gareth Rogers, my Bill team lead, Martin Jennings, Elfyn Henderson, Božo Lugonja, Samiwel Davies and Aled Evans, and also to my own team, Tomos Povey, Jonathan Kelley-Edwards, and my past member of staff, Tyler Walsh. I want to also thank stakeholders and colleagues from across Wales and beyond, many of whom have repeatedly pushed food onto the agenda for years, and have continued to support me to deliver a Bill that will encourage the development of a Welsh vision for the food system, delivering on the wealth of evidence and research that clearly shows that, as Food Policy Alliance Cymru state,

'Food is Foundational but our Food System is unequal—due in part to lack of policy coherence and accountability'.

Before I move on to the general principles behind the Bill, I need to be clear that this Bill is about more than just food, and I worry that some haven't fully appreciated that. It's been said by some Members that I've gone much further with this Bill than originally stated, and it's been suggested that maybe I should have put less on the face of the Bill. But if I had, that wouldn't have delivered the wider system change needed, the enhanced governance of the system that's so important to develop. As Torfaen council stated in their consultation response, the Bill

'would ensure that local initiatives are aligned with national commitments and vice versa, avoid duplication, increase efficiency and add value to our community wealth.'

They go on:

'It is proven difficult to align our work to the wider policy agenda in Wales without a Food Bill or associated policy.'

Then there's been the conflation by others between food and agriculture—two very interlinked terms, obviously, but two very different things. And I've heard that we don't need the Bill because we have the new Agriculture (Wales) Bill going through the Senedd, even though both Bills look at different sides of the same coin—you can't really deliver one without the other. How do we develop a more economically resilient agricultural sector, and encourage the producers to see the value of investing in sustainable land management? Well, in part, by developing domestic supply chains to provide greater opportunities for producers. How do we begin this? Well, by getting public bodies to start focusing more on their own role within the food system, and, as a start, ensuring that there's a clear direction of travel that's been set by the Government.

Looking back, perhaps I should have called this the 'food system Bill' instead of the 'Food (Wales) Bill', because I always intended for it to look at the food system more widely. Put simply, the objective behind my Bill is to build a framework that enables a coherent, consistent and strategic cross-societal approach to policy and practice on all aspects of the food system. With the principles of resilience, sustainability and equality at its heart, this Bill looks to put the Welsh food system onto a healthier footing, so that Wales is firmly placed in the driving seat of progressive policy making, by joining up the different parts of the complex food system. And by providing that long-term statutory framework, we can enable the food system to flourish away from political pressures, and within the lens of the well-being goals and the five ways of working. To me, these are principles that we should all be easily able to support.

On the other hand, there is a big difference between being supportive of such principles and actually doing something to move us forward in our pursuit of them, because, as we know, the Welsh Government doesn't support the Bill, as things stand, and unless the Minister changes her mind today—and I hope she still will, but she won't—. Again, I reiterate my desire to work with the Government, and indeed, all colleagues here, to deliver this legislation in a way that is acceptable to the Senedd. But we can only do that if we move to Stage 2 and vote for this Bill today.

So, how does the Bill deliver on those principles I've mentioned and make the difference that is needed? Well, the Bill establishes a primary food goal to provide affordable, healthy and economically, environmentally and socially sustainable food for the people of Wales. This is that vision for Wales that I spoke about earlier. To help deliver that vision, there are secondary food goals with detailed descriptions of what should be delivered and targets for delivery set by Welsh Ministers.

The Bill will place a duty on Welsh Ministers to make and publish a national food strategy. Evidence that came from Stage 1 scrutiny of the Bill was overwhelmingly in favour of a national food strategy. But there were also strong views expressed that a national food strategy must be anchored in legislation to ensure that future Ministers and future Governments would be bound by the duty to deliver it for the longer term. Similarly, there was wide support for the inclusion of local food plans in the Bill, that flow from the food goals and the national strategy, that would ensure that food policy was delivered at a local level in a consistent and targeted way.

To ensure accountability, the Bill sets reviewing and reporting duties for Welsh Ministers and public bodies. This will ensure that things are being done properly, and if not, that there is an explanation of why and how that can be changed. And, of course, underpinning all of this, the Bill will establish a Welsh food commission, as an independent body to promote and facilitate the achievement of what is required in the Bill. The food commission would also provide independent advice and guidance to Welsh Ministers and public bodies on their duties. However, I acknowledge and understand that there isn't universal support for every element of this Bill.

That leads me on to what happens if the Bill doesn't pass. Can we rely on the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales to do the work of the proposed Welsh food commission? No, we can't. The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 does not provide the strategic food policy and planning framework, as set out in my Bill. None of the well-being goals and indicators contain any meaningful reference to food. This is also why the new social partnership duty in the Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Bill cannot cover food-related issues, and it risks watering down the intention of that Bill to very little in the way of meaningful change. Meanwhile, the commissioner's offices are already stretched in terms of workload and resource. In fact, the former commissioner heavily supported the need for this Bill.

It's also been argued that a much-awaited community food strategy might be able to deliver some of what the Bill intends. But it's hardly out of the starting blocks yet, and won't touch anywhere near what the food Bill will address.

I call on the Chair of the Economy, Trade and Rural Affairs Committee—Paul Davies.

Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. This is the first debate on a Member Bill in this Senedd. I would like to open my contribution by thanking Peter Fox, and the team who supported him, for their hard work on the Bill and for their contributions to our committee's scrutiny. As a veteran of the Member Bill process, I know exactly how much effort they will have put into developing and drafting this Bill. The power to legislate, bestowed on this place by the people of Wales, is a great responsibility. As such, it is extremely important that we use this power wisely.

To venture into the world of hammer-related similes, legislation is a sledgehammer and we need to be sure we are not cracking nuts. Whilst we have the power to legislate, we need to also look at every other possible solution before using legislation, to ensure we avoid holding a hammer and treating every problem as a nail.

As such, the committee spent a lot of Stage 1 examining the need for legislation. We heard very compelling arguments around the fruits that could be borne from a joined-up food policy, and an invest-to-save argument that this Bill would reduce burdens on public services through positive outcomes such as a reduction in obesity. For example, we heard from Simon Wright of the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and Wright's Food Emporium, who told us that existing food policy and legislation is an area where he thinks we've got a serious problem with working in silos.

However, we also heard that the Bill could be overly bureaucratic, and an expensive way to address the issues it seeks to resolve and that it may not deliver the desired outcomes. And so, after examining all the evidence available to us, whilst Members unanimously supported the policy objectives of the Bill, we could not come to a unified position on the need for legislation to deliver these objectives. As a result, the committee cannot give Members a recommendation on how you should vote today.

Whilst the committee could not come to a position on the need for legislation, we do agree that food policy is an area the Welsh Government needs to focus on and prioritise. It was very clear from the evidence received that there is at least the perception of misalignment of food policy, with departments working in silos. The Welsh Government must act to improve its approach to the food system. As Peter described, this Food (Wales) Bill sets out a series of food goals. In response, the Minister sent the committee a letter outlining the Welsh Government's food policies against those goals. This was the first time members of the committee had seen the Welsh Government's food policies set out in one place, and we very much appreciated seeing the Welsh Government's policies set out clearly against the Bill's goals. The committee also welcomed the inclusion of food goals in the Bill, although we did believe the goals as drafted were too sectoral. Those goals would be underpinned by targets set by the Welsh Government. The committee also supports the inclusion of the targets in the Bill. However, we feel that there must be a strong mechanism in place to evaluate and measure progress.

The Bill would establish a food commission—something that would be no small task. Members heard compelling evidence for and against the food commission and could not come to a settled position on its establishment. However, Members feel strongly that something should be established to co-ordinate food policy. We support the Minister’s suggestion of an internal Welsh Government board, or alternatively a new position within the future generations commissioner’s office with responsibility for oversight of the food system.

The Minister has made it very clear that she will not support this Bill. While carrying out our scrutiny, we were very aware that this increased the likelihood that the Bill would fall. Peter Fox has uncovered some major issues within the Welsh food system. It would be a crying shame if the Bill were to fall and if all this work, from across the sector, were to be left unresolved.

As a result, our report makes recommendations to improve the Bill, but also policy recommendations to the Welsh Government that should be taken forward if the Bill falls. Regardless of whether the Bill becomes law or falls, the Welsh food system will be greatly improved over the coming years as result of Peter’s and his team's work.

I would like to close my contribution today, Dirprwy Lywydd, with some notes of thanks. Firstly, I would like to thank Darren Millar and Vikki Howells for stepping in and chairing the committee for part of Stage 1 while I was away. I would also like to thank all the stakeholders who took time to give the committee valuable evidence for our report. And, finally, I would like to thank the team who supported the committee through our scrutiny. I look forward, therefore, to hearing other Members’ views on this Bill. Thank you very much, Dirprwy Lywydd.

I call on the Chair of the Finance Committee, Peredur Owen Griffiths.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Before I respond on behalf of the committee, obviously, with food businesses in the news at the moment in south-east Wales, maybe this Bill might have a bearing on those businesses going forward.

But I am here today as Chair of the Finance Committee, so, thank you for the opportunity, and I welcome the opportunity to participate in this Stage 1 debate on the first Member-proposed Bill to be introduced in this Senedd.

Our report comes to three conclusions and makes seven recommendations. Given the time available today, I'll focus on our key findings. I'd also like to thank Peter Fox for providing his response to our report before today's debate. As we've heard, this is a framework Bill that will allow the Welsh Government to establish a Welsh food commission and develop a national food strategy and local food plans.

As a result, it will be a matter for the Welsh Government to agree the scale and scope of many of the elements of the Bill, and therefore, many of the costs are unknown until the Bill is implemented. For this reason, we are unable to draw a conclusion as to whether the resources contained in the regulatory impact assessment are reasonable.

The Member in charge has said that the Bill was deliberately drafted as a framework Bill to give flexibility to the Welsh Government around the implementation of key provisions. However, we have been critical of similar approaches taken by the Welsh Government on recent legislation, and we cannot make exceptions for a Member Bill, even when the Member is a member of the Finance Committee.

All Bills introduced into the Senedd should be accompanied by the best possible estimate of costs and benefits to enable us to make a decision as to whether the resources are adequate to deliver the legislation. Nonetheless, we do have sympathy with the Member in charge, as we believe there could have been more engagement from the Minister. Therefore, we have recommended that, in future, the Welsh Government commits to assisting individual Members or committees proposing legislation by providing relevant financial information prior to the Bill's introduction. The opportunity for non-government Bills to be introduced is so rare that we do not consider this to be an arduous requirement. Before turning to specific recommendations, I would like to make it clear that, should the Bill proceed today, we would expect to see the information requested included in an updated RIA following Stage 2 proceedings.

It is estimated that the cost of setting up and operating the food commission will be between £0.75 million and £1.5 million per annum. This is based on a similar piece of legislation being implemented in Scotland—the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022—and the average cost of running the office of existing Welsh commissioners. The Minister has raised concerns that the costs may be underestimated, based on the latest calculations provided for in the Scottish Act. However, in response to those claims, the Member in charge suggests that the costs of implementing specific policy areas of the Bill cannot simply be measured by comparing the figures from Scotland without comparing other factors, such as how different provisions will work in practice. Our view is that further consideration is given to the estimates based on the latest information available. I'm therefore pleased that the Member in charge has accepted recommendation 2 and will reassess and update the costs based on the latest information provided by the Scottish Government.

Under the Bill, the Welsh Government and the food commission will jointly create and deliver a national food strategy. The RIA fails to provide the cost savings from the Bill, stating that this will not be known until the national strategy policies and goals are formed. Cost savings arising from the Bill should be a key element of the options appraisal process, and it is disappointing that this has not been the case. We therefore expect the strategy to be accompanied by a robust impact assessment with a commitment that the Senedd will have the opportunity to scrutinise the costs associated with it.

Finally, Dirprwy Lywydd, the RIA also lacks information on the cost of implementing local food plans. The Member in charge has agreed part of recommendation 6 to update the RIA with details of the public bodies that are already implementing such plans. However, it's disappointing that he has rejected the second part of our recommendation to use this information to calculate a potential range of cost. Whilst we appreciate that costs may vary across local authorities, we believe the Member in charge should attempt to estimate a cost range for implementing these plans. Thank you.

I call on the chair of the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee, Huw Irranca-Davies.

Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. I intend to speak as chair of the committee first, and close with a personal contribution as a backbencher, if I may.

Our committee took evidence from Peter as the Member in charge and from the Minister in January, and we laid our report on 11 May. We made 10 recommendations, nine specifically for Peter. And can we just take the opportunity to thank Peter and his team for appearing in front of us? It's no mean feat, as a backbencher, to bring forward legislation at any time. So, thank you for that, and to the Minister as well.

We followed our very standard approach to scrutiny, as the other chairs have done. So, we sought to identify how the Bill could be improved as a proposal for a new law, should it proceed. As part of that process, we considered how the Bill would interact with the 2015 well-being of future generations Act, which Peter has alluded to, leading us to recommend that the Bill should be amended to provide that statutory guidance must be issued to public bodies on how the duties imposed on them by the Bill interact with existing duties under the 2015 Act.

On specific sections of the Bill, we made three recommendations on the primary and secondary food goals, including in particular that the primary food goal in section 2 should be removed and that public bodies should be provided with comprehensive information about the secondary food goals and how they should be interpreted.

We also made further recommendations on the food targets in sections 4 and 5. We recommended that amendments are tabled to the Bill to propose that regulations must be made and come into force within two years of section 4 coming into force, and also to provide more certainty about who should be consulted. We further recommended that local food plans under section 17 should be published within three years rather than two years of the Bill coming into force.

Finally, we made two recommendations seeking clarity about consulting bodies that could be removed from the list of public bodies in section 22 and to which the Bill applies. I note that Peter rejected these last two recommendations, and our recommendation to remove the primary food goal from the Bill, whilst accepting all the others. Members can find further information in the detail of our report.

Let me turn to some personal reflections on this, because food and food policy is something that interests a lot of us, and myself included as a former Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs Minister with a lot of involvement in this as well. There's a hell of a lot of good in this Bill, there really is, but there's a lot in this Bill, full stop—there's a lot. I really do commend the ambition, I genuinely do, but—and it's a big 'but'—let me go through some of them, and this is a personal reflection, not as Chair.

You've really shot for the stars within this, and part of that is to do with the consultation, the wide engagement that you've had, and everybody has put in their two-penn'orth, and there's a lot within the Bill. That is great, and it's high ambition—you shot for the stars, but it causes some complications and some contradictions as well. It's comprehensive; it's all-singing, all-dancing, aims to be the one ring to bind them all, as Tolkien might say. But, you've talked about system change, governance overhauls that come with this. There's widespread engagement, and there's probably more to come if this Bill proceeds as it is; it covers every Government department; it's cross-societal, as Peter rightly said there; it touches Ministers in every department; it will look at setting up a new commission, which is quite interesting based on some of the discussions we've had about commissions and the merits and otherwise of this, but a new commission; it will have obligations and other public duties. We have unclear costs, and as has been alluded to, also unclear cost savings as well, which, if a Bill like this, of this scale, was coming forward, you'd expect them to be there; it overlaps with existing plans and actions to some extent; it may not deliver the desired outcomes, as was mentioned by Paul in his contribution there from the Economy, Trade and Rural Affairs Committee; and it will probably require diversion of a significant scale of current resource within Government and curtailment of some actions that are currently ongoing—those are the implications.

I call on the Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd—Lesley Griffiths.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I very much welcome the opportunity to respond to the committee's reports and present the Welsh Government's position on the general principles of the Food (Wales) Bill.

I'd like to begin by paying tribute to Peter Fox and thanking him for his constructive engagement both with myself and with my officials throughout the development of the Bill. I think Peter's brought a real energy to this important debate on the future of our food system, and I know you've brought many people together in sharing their ideas. I want to assure Members that we must build on the momentum that Peter and other Members who have long campaigned on these issues have helped to create, and I'm sure there'll be many of the ideas that have come forward through your work and the debate in the Senedd today that will merit further attention from Government and the many different players in our local and global food systems.

In considering the motion before the Senedd today, however, I believe that the best way to build on that momentum is not to give further consideration to this Bill. I support the broad aims of the Bill, as I believe many across this Siambr do, and I believe that those broad aims are consistent with the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, which was passed by this Senedd, the lens of which is applied to every decision I take, as a Minister in Welsh Government, in relation to food and every other matter. Further legislation in this area to require a detailed plan-setting framework, as this Bill proposes, however, risks adding complexity and reducing the resource available to address the challenges that Peter and others have rightly identified. It does not add to the tools already available to pursue food systems that are fit for future generations.

The reports by Senedd committees highlighted just some of the tensions that it would create with existing legislation and public bodies. I believe that the action we must pursue to confront the challenges across food systems with the urgency that they require is to use the powers that we already have, not only the powers available to Government, but working with public bodies, communities, food producers and other businesses, who all bring their own ideas and abilities to the table. There are many examples of communities, businesses and public bodies in Wales that are reshaping the food system with local and global impact, and I'm sure that every Member could highlight such initiatives in their constituency or region. The way they've shaped the food system is not as the result of a top-down directive, but it really comes from the people and the circumstances that exist in those communities. I believe that a community-focused approach to reshaping the food system, using our convening power as a Government and our ability to support local action, is the best way to address the challenges that have been identified. This can be more powerful than could be achieved by being overly reliant on bureaucratic means. The danger here is that, in the promise of a perfect legislative solution, we are diverted from more immediate and inclusive ways of achieving our aims.

The way in which the work of the Food Commission in England has struggled to move forward, whilst food poverty has soared, illustrates the difficulties of taking the approach put forward in this Bill. Clearly, for a plan to work, it needs to be focused on a challenge that it has some chance of addressing. It needs to properly engage all of those who need to be invested in its success. Whilst the Senedd and Welsh Government do not hold all of the levers to shape the full extent of the food systems on which we all rely, we can and do influence them in decisions we make. Food systems are also powerfully shaped by our food producers and other businesses. Consumer choices and community action also shape the way in which food is produced and shared. I agree there are opportunities for us as Government to use our abilities, in a concerted way, to shape the food system, and my belief is the most powerful way we can do that is not in the level of detail we can produce in a plan. Rather, it's more to do with our ability to support that community-level action, including by mobilising the support of the public sector and by helping them work with our Welsh food producers and the wider food sector. The Welsh Government and the Senedd have taken a consistent interest in how to make our food systems fairer, greener and stronger.

I'm very grateful for the opportunity to speak in this afternoon's debate, but can I first begin by thanking Peter Fox and his team for their hard work and commitment to this piece of legislation? It made for very interesting committee sessions, scrutinising someone from my own benches for the first time, but I must commend Peter for his openness and honesty during those sessions. In fact, the way Peter answered questions at committee, he would make a fine Welsh Government Minister.

So, what do I believe Peter is seeking to achieve with the introduction of his food Bill? I think it's transformational food system change—change that would benefit the whole food supply chain from the producers to the processors, and, importantly, to the consumer. By seeking to develop a resilient food policy framework, we can better protect our food sovereignty and, as we've already heard this afternoon, enhance consumer choice, eliminate needless food waste, tackle food poverty and bolster our efforts to fight climate change.

And as Peter said in his opening remarks, the time to act is now. Putin's illegal and barbaric invasion of Ukraine has shown that food sovereignty is critical to enhancing our own nation's security. We've seen first-hand the impact that geopolitics can have on our own domestic supply chain, the enormous rise in food production input costs, and food inflation hitting a staggering 19.2 per cent, a pressure felt right across the western world, 21.2 per cent in Germany, 16.6 per cent in Spain and 15.9 per cent in France.

These challenges have direct consequences on our entire economy, from the farmer seeking to cultivate their crops to the consumer in the supermarket. If these circumstances continue to go unchecked, then our failure to act, to support this critical legislation and its aims, risks undermining Wales's collective resilience against some of the country's biggest challenges. And I believe that's why Peter Fox's food Bill is important and incredibly timely. To address these monumental challenges, we need a long-term statutory framework policy that recognises the complexities of our food system, that takes into account every single actor, from farm gate to plate. That's what Peter's food Bill does.

We need a collective food vision strategy that brings all partners together around the decision-making table to ensure that we have a transparent framework that takes into account the responsibility of every Welsh Government department, be that the Minister for Economy, rural affairs, social justice or climate change. That is what Peter's food Bill does.

And we need a national food strategy that is anchored in legislation, that has guaranteed, statutory safeguards that ensure everyone has access to top quality home-grown Welsh produce. That's what Peter's food Bill does. By working in parallel to the Welsh Government's Agriculture (Wales) Bill and the sustainable farming scheme, we can enact an all-encompassing food strategy that safeguards and stabilises Wales's food supply chain to the benefit of everyone.

This Bill is not just about food production; it's definitely about a whole-system approach, and I very much thank Peter Fox for all of the work he's done. How could anybody not be in favour of the primary purpose of providing affordable, healthy and economically, environmentally and socially sustainable food?

On the secondary objectives, I agree that we must develop people's food skills, and not just in schools. At least six in 10 people never cook a meal from scratch, relying either on a takeaway or a ready meal. What's the problem with that? In short, it is killing you. Ultra-processed food is both addictive and loaded with additives to either prolong its shelf life or give some taste to poor-quality ingredients. We really are ultra-processed people.

So, I'm not surprised that the Food and Drink Federation don't want this Bill, as most of their members are involved in the ultra-processed game. The processors and retailers spend billions on devising new ways to hook people on their product rather than a rival product, and there are huge profits to be made. But the few large companies that dominate the landscape—far larger than any Welsh Government—are disinclined to share the rewards with the farmers, the people who produce the food.

It is quite challenging to buy food that has not been adulterated in some way with an additive to extend its shelf life. It's difficult to wean people off their addiction, because people eat more than they should partly because of its addictive properties, but also because food that lacks nourishment leaves people still feeling hungry.

The NHS now spends 12 per cent of its budget—over £1 billion—on caring for people with diabetes. That has gone up from 10 per cent a few years ago and it's due to increase to 17 per cent, so that's over £1.5 billion at today's prices. I'm sure you could all think of better ways of spending that money, if only we could halt this epidemic, and that's before you even talk about all of the other things that are diseases that are food related. We cannot afford to go on like this. Peter's Bill has highlighted the problem and articulated some of the changes required.

But beating our obesogenic food environment can't just be the work of the ministry of rural affairs and the sustainable land management programme. The challenge is miles bigger than that, and, as has already been pointed out, this affects every single Minister on the front bench. They, in some way or another, are responsible for food policy.

So, the best efforts are being made at the moment by the education Minister, who has made a very good start on rolling out universal free school meals. Because this isn't about serving up junk food to our children so that they get something, this is about having nourishing, good food to give children, the next generation, the taste for proper food. I very much applaud his backing local firms fund to encourage local authorities to procure fresh ingredients. Healthy, sustainable Welsh food on children's plates—what's not to like in that? But he simply can't do this on his own.

Jenny, conclude now, please.

—commissioner and all the other people who are the very significant people. If this Bill does not proceed, we cannot use it as an excuse for further inaction. We have to ensure that we have whole-system change in our approach to food.

I want to begin my contribution by congratulating Peter Fox on bringing this Bill to this point on its journey, and I do want to take a moment to express our general support for this Bill once again. Plaid Cymru wants to see a Wales where everyone has easy access to nutritious food that has been produced sustainably and in a way that ensures a fair income for farmers and all workers in the food sector.

We know what needs to happen to deliver this: we need a systematic approach that tackles the serious deficiencies in the infrastructure of our food sector at the moment. But the reality is that the current policy landscape in food in Wales is too patchy and that there isn't an inclusive vision for food in Wales at a national or a local level. I welcome the commitment to developing a community food strategy as a step towards putting that right, but, as things stand, this will be a community strategy, so gaps in the policy landscape remain. Further, there is no fit-for-purpose delivery structure in order to deliver this vision, because different departments of Government are doing different things in silos.

As far as I know, there isn't a single body or department within Government that's responsible for holistically and strategically co-ordinating action in this area. That's why we on these benches believe that we need to establish a food commission to facilitate this, as well as the other commitments, some of them consistent with the Bill before us today, in order to deliver our clear and long-established vision for the food sector in Wales.

This Bill must ensure that healthy eating is encouraged by monitoring access to healthy food in our most disadvantaged communities, and ensuring that the food system is linked with other sectors, for example by ensuring that cookery is on the curriculum and that this includes local produce and healthy recipes.

As well as introducing free school meals for all primary school children, which is to be warmly welcomed, it would be appropriate for a food system created as a result of this Bill to ensure that food and its production are rooted in the lives of our schools, with contracts procured locally wherever possible so that children can learn where their food comes from and develop the habit of eating nutritious, locally produced food early on in their lives, which will mean that they are healthier, with benefits to the economy and the environment.

The Welsh Government has an important part to play in the work of changing the food culture of Wales, and this Bill should be an opportunity to do that. One area where this clearly needs to happen is our fisheries sector, in terms of aquaculture and seafood. Now the sector in Wales has an opportunity to develop and to contribute to the objective of Wales being in the vanguard in producing sustainable food. Wales is surrounded by the sea and our seas are abundant with produce that could feed the nation sustainably, but, at the moment, the sector is on its knees. Unfortunately, we as a nation have lost the taste for the nutritious produce of our seas, and this Bill gives us an opportunity to rebuild this sector.

Just for clarity purposes, the Minister will not be responding any further, because it’s the Member in charge who will respond. Laura Anne Jones.

Diolch, Deputy Presiding Officer. I, too, welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate, and may I first, of course, start by paying tribute to Peter Fox for all the hard work that the Member for Monmouth has done to date to get this Bill to this point?

The purpose of this Bill is admirable and much needed. It aims to establish a more sustainable food system here in Wales, which the country has been crying out for for some time now, to encourage joined-up thinking across stakeholders too, which, sadly, has been lacking for a long time. It lays out simple aims, which would have an enormous positive impact.

As shadow Minister for education, as a parent, like others in this Chamber have already mentioned today, I am, of course, interested in children’s nutrition and the content of school meals, and I feel that, unfortunately, we do not invest in our children in this regard like we should. School meal offerings differ massively between local authority areas, and it is time to start giving real thought to how we can offer more nutritious food to our children and young people, with the multitude of physical and mental health benefits that that would bring, as well as, at the same time, supporting local rural economies, supporting local procurement, so we have high-quality meat and veg in our schools, not using bugs. Supporting our local businesses and farmers and thus reducing food miles would also help the environment, and I welcome the aims of this Bill.

I have no doubt that using local food in our schools would not only improve education about where food comes from, but it would also emphasise the importance of buying local and the positive environmental impact of doing so. It is important that we capitalise on the wonderful world-class local Welsh produce that is all around us to feed our children in our schools, and I do believe that using the quality of what we have around us, reducing food miles, making the system more sustainable and the enormous health benefits is something that children want too. It would be great to see greater progression in this area as one of the many positive outcomes achievable from this Bill.

I know that Jenny Rathbone—. You’ve already outlined the positives of this as well, and, as someone who also wants to see this happen, you must see the opportunity that this Bill presents, and I hope that, like Jane Dodds as well, you will be supporting this Bill today.

There are a multitude of benefits to this Bill that Peter and others have already outlined, so I won’t go over them again, apart from to say that I know that we all as Welsh Conservatives see the high value of getting this Bill through the Senedd. Supporting agriculture is at the heart of this Bill, and as a farmer's daughter that delights me, and I wholeheartedly support that aim. The Bill has a real opportunity to ensure we are sustainable as a nation, whilst increasing our food security. We need to move to have the security of knowing that food production is sustainable and localised to cut wastage. I think it would be a travesty to miss out on getting this Member's Bill through to the next stage, or at least for its aims to be worked on and taken forward in other ways. It certainly would be a missed opportunity not to vote for it, to listen to it and take actions because of it, as this is an opportunity to lay foundations for future generations. Surely, this is why we are all here, and as Peter alluded to earlier, actions speak louder than words, and I strongly urge you to support this motion today.

There are two speakers remaining, and we are out of our time, but I'm going to call on both. I ask them to be succinct and within time, please. Vikki Howells.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'd like to start by thanking the Member for Monmouth for bringing forward this Bill. It poses some really important questions and has created space within which we can discuss them: questions about our food supply, how we make it sustainable, how we make it secure and how we enhance consumer choice, whilst also ensuring those choices contribute to well-being and the safeguarding of our environment. We know that obesity is a leading public health concern here in Wales, but also more and more people are using foodbanks, as they just cannot afford to eat. Clearly, all of this suggests that we need to take a refreshed approach to food.

I also find this a very timely discussion running alongside our consideration of the Welsh Government's agriculture Bill. That, of course, looks at how we support our farmers and use our land. I've really valued the opportunity to be able to consider some of those questions as a Member of ETRA when we were scrutinising the Bill, and I know that's a feeling shared amongst other committee members too. I'd like to also offer my thanks to the clerking team and all who gave evidence for making this a really worthwhile investigation. I think, in the Member's response to our report, he talks about the overwhelming engagement from stakeholders, and I'd like to echo those comments. Thanks to all who engaged.

However, based on the evidence sessions, I will not be voting in favour of the general principles of the Bill and for it to move on to the next stage of the legislative process. I don't think, in its current form, it necessarily provides the answers to some of the questions I touched on earlier. Instead, and after hearing from all who came to ETRA, I've reached the conclusion that this is an area where new primary legislation is not needed. The Minister's view that the Bill as set out would be overly bureaucratic and expensive is, I think, the correct one, especially when we factor in all that we know about the pressures on budgets and spending.

Rather, our priorities should be about the development of a national food strategy. This should be co-produced between Welsh Government and stakeholders, and based on a thorough analysis of any gaps in existing targets. We know that work in this area is already ongoing. For example, there is the programme for government and the co-operation agreement, and these already commit to the development of a Wales community food strategy, to encourage the production and supply of locally sourced food in Wales. I look forward to further development of these proposals, based on the views of consumers and those involved in community food initiatives. This was also a point that came out during our scrutiny sessions, with some witnesses talking about existing local food partnerships. There is a need to scale up some of this work and in helping us to make these calls and rehearse these arguments, the Member's Bill has made a really significant contribution.

And finally, Gareth Davies.

Diolch yn fawr iawn, Deputy Llywydd. It's a pleasure to take part in this debate this afternoon, and you'll be pleased to know that I'll keep my remarks very succinct, Deputy Llywydd.

I just want to start by saying thank you to Peter Fox for bringing this to the Senedd this afternoon, and for the work that you've done, obviously not just in committee but over a long period of time, because it's way over 12 months now, isn't it? It doesn't seem that long ago since we met up at the Royal Welsh Show and we discussed in detail the particulars of this food Bill. I think, for me, it was that opportunity of seeing it on that platform of the Royal Welsh Show and seeing how much it was indeed welcomed by the sector in that particular week. It was an eye-opener for me.

What I want to focus on, because in the debate we've covered quite a lot in this period of time, but what I want to focus on are points 196 and 197 on the food goals, and the opportunity and the scope that this Bill's got, in terms of achieving economic well-being. Obviously, in my constituency, the Vale of Clwyd, we've got two of the most deprived wards in the whole of Wales, in West Rhyl and Upper Denbigh, and I think the scope and the power of this Bill—. When I look at Bills, I always think to myself, 'What does this mean for my constituents, and what does it mean to a member of the public or somebody on the streets?', and I think the scope of this Bill and the research and everything that's gone into it, it has the opportunity to be really felt by everybody, from children to people in care and health and social care settings.

I fully agree with what Jenny Rathbone said about having good-quality food in health and social care settings, because when I was in physio, working in rehab, I used to think to myself, 'Well, we're expecting patients to be rehabilitated in quite acute settings, and they're not being provided with nutritious food.' And a key part of rehabilitation is that they are nourished to an acceptable standard, because, obviously, with broken bones and with some acute injuries that we can be faced with in hospitals, they need the rehab, but they also need the nutrition to go with that as well, because it's a whole package, and I think this Bill does achieve that.

And in terms of the power of it and how far it can go, I can't understand, for the life of me, why Labour aren't supporting this. They say it's the party of fairness, well, this Bill does that, as far as I'm concerned. It creates that fairness and I think the points that I've seen here, it's very much a classless Bill as well, because I thinks it's got the power to be felt by everybody in society, and I think that's something to be celebrated. So, I'll just finish my remarks by encouraging everybody to vote for this Bill tonight. Thank you.

I call on Peter Fox to reply to the debate.

Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd, and can I thank every one of you for your contributions? It's been a good debate. There is a huge amount of work gone into this, and it wasn't brought lightly, as you know, and there will always be contention around transformational change, and this Bill was about transformation. Huw, I make no apologies for ambition. Governments should have ambition. They should have ambition to reach out past their norms, to challenge the status quo, to be brave, to be bold for the future generations. That's what we talk about so much in this place, about future generations, how important they are to us, yet we're frightened of acting because we hear, 'It's resource', 'It's money' and 'How do we afford this?' That's not cutting it. Governments should step up to the plate, above and beyond that type of rhetoric, and we need to move forward, and we're not, sadly.

But, anyway, I'll reflect on the contributions. Thank you so much to the Chairs of the committees and for the responses. I welcomed the challenge and I enjoyed the process, and I acknowledge the recommendations you made. I won't reiterate the responses—you've seen those. As I've said all along in the committees, I wouldn't be the one who could deliver this—this was for the Government. It had to be a framework. If I made it all-inclusive and put everything on the face of the Bill, it would never have been delivered. It's like so many other framework Bills that come here. Peredur, you know, within Finance Committee, we've talked about it regularly, the frustration of the framework Bills, that you can't get the RIAs detailed enough. I've sat in on other Bills the same. And I accept that, but it's not for me to flesh out what the costs would be, because it would be dependent on how much effort and weight and width the Government would put into it. But I thank you for your comment.

Minister, can I thank you too for your engagement? I know this is difficult, especially when it comes alongside so many other bits of legislation that you're trying to move through, and can be seen as frustrating. We can work together on this; we could have actually shaped something so positive, so transformational, that could have linked with everything that is going on. I acknowledge what you're offering around embracing a strategy, and an inter-governmental forum. That's great, but how do we hold that to account? How do we hold the food system to account without legislation? If it was possible, why hasn't it been done already? We have massive weaknesses in this sector, which has been highlighted by so many stakeholders, hence the need for policy to be rooted in legislation, so that it can be held to account for future generations. That's so important.

Sam, thank you for your supportive contribution all the way through this, and the recognition that we need this to strengthen our country's resilience.

Peter, you need to conclude now, please.

I'm sorry, yes, Chair. I've got stacks to say, but I know I'm not going to be able to.

Mabon, thank you and your group for your continuous support and the recognition of a commission. As I've said all through this, if there are elements that are the sticking point for us to move forward, I've made that concession that I will happily amend to work with you all to make this usable. If we let it fall today, it doesn't get a chance to breathe again, and we carry on with the status quo, and I shared how the status quo isn't working, as so many stakeholders have.

So, please, today, all of you, just think about your children, and your children's children, and how we should give this a chance to breathe at Stage 2. The Government can always stop it later on—don't worry about that; they will find a way. But, let it go to Stage 2 to prove that this can be so much more than what you think it is. Thank you.

The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Yes. I will defer voting under this item until voting time.

Item 6 is next, a debate on the Equality and Social Justice Committee report, 'Women’s experiences in the criminal justice system'. I call on the Chair of the committee to move the motion. Jenny Rathbone.

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. Imagine a child saying goodbye to their mother at the school gate in the morning, and then being told she won't be coming to collect you at going-home time. Every year, every day, mothers are sent to prison for low-level offences, even to the surprise of their social workers. Sixty per cent of these prison sentences given to women in Wales were for less than six months. The average stay for a woman in Eastwood Park prison is 42 days, and the governor of Styal prison mentioned that one woman was there for a week, over Christmas, 'to teach her a lesson'.

Focusing on punishment and ignoring rehabilitation is a shocking misuse of public resources and abuse of the criminal justice system. Not only are we punishing innocent children, short sentences are just too short to address offending behaviour, but long enough to lose your job, your children, and your home, in most cases.

Seventy per cent of women given custodial sentences of under 12 months reoffend within a year—should we be surprised? There have to be better ways of spending £60,000, which is what it costs to keep someone in prison for a year, and there definitely are. It is now over 15 years since the landmark report by Baroness Jean Corston, which highlighted that most women who commit crime are extremely vulnerable and do not require a custodial sentence to protect the public from harm. She argued—and no Government has disagreed—that most female offenders can safely be given community sentences, with imprisonment reserved only for the most extreme and violent offenders. Progress in implementing Corston’s recommendations has been painfully slow, and in some respects we’ve gone backwards, because there are now twice as many women in the prison population as there were 20 years ago. With no women’s prisons in Wales, most Welsh women given custodial sentences end up in Eastwood Park in Gloucestershire or Styal prison outside Manchester. Both places are difficult and expensive to get to, and on average they’re 100 miles away from where families are living.

Most women committing low-level offences are vulnerable women with complex needs. Their vulnerabilities are exacerbated by the trauma of being sent to prison, and as we were reminded by the His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons report on Eastwood Park at the end of last year, prisons are simply not equipped to deal with the level of self-harm and mental illness exacerbated by being in prison, despite the best efforts of prison staff. By sending such people to prison, we are perpetuating the enduring harm of adverse childhood experiences from one generation to the next.

I would like to extend a warm welcome to representatives from the Nelson Trust who are in the gallery today to listen to this debate, and commend the wonderful work they’re doing in Cardiff, in Eastwood Park and elsewhere across the country. The committee would like to thank all those who engaged with us during this inquiry—the stories we heard, particularly from women incarcerated in Styal and Eastwood Park, and from community focus groups who have helped us to understand how we could, and should, be approaching offending behaviour very differently. I also want to thank the committee clerks, the research service and the community engagement team, without whose work this report would not be possible.

Central to the Welsh Government’s approach is the women’s justice blueprint. It was set up by the Welsh Government with the Ministry of Justice and His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service. There is broad support for this collaborative approach to women’s justice. The intentions and aspirations of the blueprint to keep women out of prison, where possible, is to be commended. However, awareness of this ambition still appears to be patchy. The Magistrates Association told us that, in a recent survey of their members, only half the respondents had heard of the blueprint, and that’s something that absolutely has to change, because these are the sentencers who send women to prison. So, there’s a lot of work to be done to prevent women from being sent to prison for offences that would be much better dealt with, and more effectively, in the community. We have concerns about the pace of change to keep most women out of prison and we require detailed updates, I think, on its implementation. Custodial sentences must be a last resort, not the default option. Women who do not pose a threat to society should not be going to prison for minor offences. While there is limited availability of alternatives across Wales, women will continue to be given custodial sentences.

Community-based women's centres can play a key role in providing a collaborative, trauma-informed approach to supporting women and helping to divert individuals from a path into the justice system. The Welsh Government is to be commended for the investment it and the Ministry of Justice have made in the North Wales Women’s Centre in Rhyl, and the most recent women’s centre in Cardiff, run by the Nelson Trust. I’ve visited both of them and caught a glimpse of the excellent work that is being done there. I commend the North Wales Women's Centre in Rhyl for having a strategy for ensuring that this is a service not just for women living near Rhyl, but also establishing outreach services in Bangor and Wrexham as well. We must enable all women across Wales to be able to access women’s centres, whether or not they have got themselves involved in the criminal justice system. We welcome the Welsh Government’s ambition in their response to work towards eventually having a women’s centre in each local authority area in Wales. On the question of who’s going to pay for them, I’ll come back to that in a moment.

I would also like to thank the committee clerks and all the witnesses who made this inquiry possible. Chair, you have been fantastic all along.

Our inquiry looked at the support given by the Welsh Government to women in the criminal justice system, and in gathering evidence we heard about some truly shocking experiences. The lack of adequate support has led to startlingly high reoffending rates. Criminal justice might not be devolved, but the Welsh Government is wholly responsible for health and social care, education and housing, and it is shortfalls in these areas that help contribute to shockingly high levels of recidivism amongst female Welsh prisoners. The lack of drug and alcohol rehabilitation, particularly residential detoxification—and I must declare an interest here, as a patron of Brynawel Rehab—has a massive impact on reoffending rates.

I was really disappointed to hear from our witnesses that accessing detoxification programmes was almost impossible for many women in the criminal justice system. This was made even more surprising when I learned that tier 4 funding for residential rehab was regularly returned back by area planning boards—hundreds of thousands of pounds allocated for the provision of rehab services returned to Welsh Government each and every year, yet many women cannot access such provision. I would ask the Minister to consider whether the substance misuse action fund and Rehab Cymru are working as intended, and whether the area planning boards are the right approach. If we are to prevent women from entering or re-entering the criminal justice system, then we have to prevent offending in the first place.

As the committee learnt, lots of offending occurs due to substance misuse issues. Residential rehab and detoxification programmes like those offered at Brynawel are proven to tackle substance abuse and addiction long term. Yet we know it is difficult, almost impossible, for most women in the criminal justice system to access such services.

As part of our inquiry, the committee visited Eastwood Park prison, and I have been told by the members of that prison’s drugs recovery team that the Welsh women are at a significant disadvantage when trying to secure funding for residential rehab. During our visit we heard that reoffending rates among Welsh prisoners were 10 times higher than those of the English prisoners. In order to tackle such a frightfully high rate of reoffending, we have to ensure Welsh female prisoners are fully supported in their health and care needs, as well as in education and housing.

The governor of Eastwood Park told us that housing was a particular concern as many Welsh prisoners have nowhere to go. Their nearest approved housing is in Bristol, so many of the prison leavers end up homeless. Women at the prison told us that some reoffend just to come back to the safety of the prison. We can’t lock people up just because they have nowhere else to go. Criminal justice is not devolved, but housing is. The Welsh Government have a duty to these women, a duty to ensure they get the care and support needed to prevent reoffending. I urge them to fully support recommendations 14 and 15, and urgently implement recommendations 17 and 18. Thank you very much.

I'll never forget visiting HMP Eastwood Park as a part of the inquiry that led to this report. I will never forget the Welsh women I met there—the Welsh women who live on the jagged edge of devolution, so disadvantaged, so discriminated against, so damaged by the fact that Wales doesn't have powers over our criminal justice system.

In our report, our committee cites and evidences the harm—the harm—to women arising from the current devolution settlement. The powerful testimony we heard, the devastating stories of these women, were reinforced by the expert opinion we heard as a committee. Dr Robert Jones of the Wales Governance Centre clearly illustrated for us how that jagged edge of intersecting unaligned but shared devolved and reserved powers and responsibilities over which the criminal justice system operates in Wales is such a sharp one for women.

Plaid Cymru is very glad to see the Welsh Government accept in full recommendation 2 of the report that it,

'should endeavour to obtain devolved responsibility for women’s involvement in the criminal justice system,'

agreeing in its response to our report that,

'outcomes for women in the criminal justice system in Wales could be significantly improved through devolution,'

and accepting Dr Robert Jones's description that,

'the ability of devolved government to act as an effective policy maker is constrained and, ultimately, undermined by the fact that the UK Government controls most of the key criminal justice policy levers.'

This is, surely, the key recommendation of this report and the key finding of this inquiry, foregrounding fundamental questions about the feasibility of doing joined-up policy in such a complex legislative landscape, with two Governments controlling different areas, levers and accountability, and clearly showing the effect of this on some of our most vulnerable citizens.

So, what progress is being made towards this, Minister? What conversations have you had with UK Labour leader, Keir Starmer, around this point, because we've had in the past mixed messages from Labour on the devolution of criminal justice to Wales? I would like to hear clarity from you and the party you represent on this point, especially considering Labour could come to power in the next year in Westminster.

So many of our recommendations as a committee, from access to and equity of rehabilitation services for women, tackling substance misuse and aiding recovery, to meeting physical and mental health needs, are dependent on this successful joining up of policy—that which is set out and embodied in the aims of the women's justice blueprint. Although broadly welcomed, time and again we found the approach of the blueprint being hampered or even undermined, and progress on its aims slow and patchy.

I want to also start by thanking my colleagues, the Chair and the clerks of the Equality and Social Justice Committee for their work on this vital and timely 'Women’s experiences in the criminal justice system' report, as well as all of those who gave evidence and spoke before the committee. And I am pleased that Welsh Government has responded by either accepting, or accepting in principle, the recommendations of the report, and I look forward to seeing what further work is done to support these very vulnerable women.

I proposed carrying out this inquiry after the UK Government botched proposals to have a women’s residential centre in Bridgend and Porthcawl in my constituency, and I'm not being unnecessarily political there; it was a cross-party sentiment that they were completely inappropriate locations, and the constituents, myself and the local authority were accused of nimbyism, but it was not that at all. There was no consultation, there was no local understanding, and there were no clear reasons, objectives or understanding of why we were even having this in Wales. So, I am pleased that, through this inquiry, we have received evidence in which we have received some answers to these questions. I would say that what has really come through—you talk about the jagged edge, Sioned Williams, but it is a chasm, it is an absolute chasm because of the lack of joined-up working in all of these areas, and the lack of ability for our Welsh Government Ministers to really prevent these women, and give them the support that they need, and these are the women who are falling through that.

I also found that we may not have women incarcerated in Wales at the moment, but they are only just over our border in England, half-an-hour ride. I also visited HMP Eastwood Park prison and actually, Welsh women make up over half of the prisoners in there. And these are the women I want to focus on today, because I'm incredibly grateful for them meeting with us, and as you've said, Sioned Williams, I do not want them to feel as if we went in there, talked to them, and then nothing came of this, because I really want to see meaningful action from this.

So, some of the things that they told us: access to healthcare, the Welsh women were not getting access to Buvidal, they were only getting methadone. I believe that that has now been sorted. Welsh women were not getting the access and the funding to go into rehab when they came out, especially if they’d only been in there three months and they hadn't been able to see the benefit of doing a rehab programme, whereas English women were. Access to housing: many of them were just let out on the day that they were released, and they were just left to try to get to Bristol train station—£40 it was, for a taxi, where were they getting the money for that? And when they got to Bristol station, there are drug dealers there who know exactly how to pick them off before they even get a train back to Wales.

The access to elected representatives: they cannot reach their elected representatives. They don't even know who would represent them. Is it where they currently reside in the prison, or would it be where they're from? Would it be us, back in Wales? And I know that it does say in the report, that the Welsh Government—that this is the remit of the governor, but I know, from having one woman approach me and say, 'Can you get my MS to get in touch with me?’ that they have to give you their e-mail address, and then the MS has to e-mail them, pay 50p, and they told me, like, 10 times, because they were so desperate for help, 'Just please make sure that you tick the box that says I'm allowed to reply, because otherwise, I can't even reply to you'. So, I'd really like to know how—how exactly are these women able to reach us? Because it didn't seem to me like there was any other way apart from that.

I would also like to extend my thanks to the Chair, to my committee members, and the Nelson Trust, who are here this afternoon—diolch yn fawr iawn.

You have everything stacked against you. You're poor. You're in terrible housing. You've experienced the toxic trio of mental health, domestic violence and substance abuse. And then you get sent to prison. You have no support there. You have nothing that helps you with your discharge. And so what happens? You end up there again. Fifty-six per cent of women who serve custodial sentences reoffend within one year. That should shock us. That should really chill us to the bones, because prison is not working. Prison is not working for women.

I was honoured but felt very sad to take part in this inquiry. Like my colleagues visited a prison, I went to visit Styal prison in Cheshire. I'm pleased to see that the recommendations from the report have been accepted. This report actually reminds us how women in Wales deserve so much better than the institutional failure of the English criminal justice system. Here we are, more than a decade after the Corston report, which suggested such a radical and progressive holistic approach, and yet, Welsh women continue to suffer short prison sentences that last long enough to ruin lives but not enough to help them in their rehabilitation.

I have five things just to highlight, if I may, with the Minister. We've heard many things, but just five from me. Magistrates—we heard from them. They need to have more awareness of the women's justice blueprint. They are critical—critical—to the pathway for women to hopefully avoid custody.

Secondly, we need sustainable and expanded funding for things like the Nelson Trust, for women's pathfinder schemes and for community women's centres.

Thirdly, as we've heard so passionately from Sarah, a greater awareness of the rights for women to access elected members. Once they're in a prison, we've forgotten about them, and I know it's the same with young people in youth offending institutions. If you put them somewhere, particularly somewhere in the middle of nowhere with a big fence around it, everybody thinks they're okay, but they're not. We have a responsibility, and I would like the Minister to specifically give the reasons why we as Senedd Members and as a Senedd Commission can't be more active in reaching out to those governors and saying, 'Please make the Welsh women aware of how they can access their elected members.'

Fourthly, you've heard—the devolution of the full criminal justice system. It's not a step—. We don't want steps, nothing like the suggestion from Gordon Brown of some smattering of the criminal justice system; we want it all, because we need to make sure that women and men and everybody in Wales can have a fairer, progressive system. Through that, I hope we'll develop non-residential centres, because we are prepared to take risks. And finally, fifthly, a more joined-up and consistent approach to mothers in prison.

It's a pleasure to take part in this debate this afternoon. I will keep my remarks fairly short. Jenny Rathbone actually beat me to it, actually, in mentioning the North Wales Women's Centre in Rhyl, in my constituency, because I wanted to take the opportunity of this debate to highlight the good work they do for women, not only in my constituency, but across the region of north Wales. And as you mentioned as well, they have the outreach centres in Bangor and Wrexham as well, so it's really positive to see the good work that they do. I visited there at the back end of last year—it was November/December time—and it was a great pleasure to see the work that they do, and I attended a seminar there, and we spoke about the issues facing women locally and across, obviously, Wales and north Wales as well.

The common theme that came from the seminar was indeed the devolution of the criminal justice system for women, and the point I wanted to raise in recommendation 2 is that devolved responsibility. To me anyway, everything that is around the periphery of the justice system—things like hospitals, healthcare, social care and also housing as well—are all devolved things. And around that as well is looking at the issues that we've got currently around that. So, obviously, we talk in this Chamber every week about the latest failure of Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, shortages in social care workers, children's services. We talk about that every week here in the Senedd, and also the shortage of housing. So, I'm not too sure, personally, that devolution is the golden pathway to improving criminal justice for women. And in that sense, I think as well it's just about getting it right. I'm more than happy to support this motion in the voting tonight, but I just wanted to raise that, and say that devolution doesn't always mean better. I think it's looking at, obviously, the current system and maybe looking at how we can improve that, because, like I say, in the things around the periphery that are devolved, we speak about their chronic failures here every week. So, we could have a situation in that sense where we could be doing a disservice to our vulnerable women in terms of subjecting them more to the things that are failing currently under this Labour Government in Cardiff.

So, they were my observations on reading the report this morning. I enjoyed reading the report, and I thank the members of the committee and the staffing team who all contributed to this, and I only wanted to raise recommendation 2, as I did enjoy the report. And I'd just like to close my remarks by thanking all of the staff at the North Wales Women's Centre for the great work that they do, and I was really impressed on my recent visit there in my constituency. Thank you very much.

Alun Davies.

I'm grateful to you, Deputy Presiding Officer. One of the privileges of elected office, of course, is that we do have the opportunity to see and visit and speak with many different people, and we have the opportunity to see things and to experience things that perhaps you wouldn't necessarily experience in other walks of life. I think one of the things, as I look back over perhaps too long in this place—. I look at the things that have affected me most profoundly. And I have to say, prior to being appointed to ministerial office with some responsibility for justice, the justice system had never seriously crossed my path. I haven't been in prison, none of my family have, and I haven't had that personal experience of it. And I was shocked by what I saw when I visited the secure estate in Wales. I was shocked by what I heard was happening to people in my constituency, from my constituency, from our communities up and down Wales, on a daily basis. I was shocked by the way that people are treated in the criminal justice system and by the criminal justice system, and on every single occasion, without exception, the failures that are visited upon the male population in prison, and on the secure estate in different ways, are visited on women to a far, far, greater extent. I can think of not a single occasion—and I think men are poorly treated by the criminal justice system—where the experience of women gets anywhere close to the experience of men. And that is a standing rebuke to us all, and it's a standing rebuke to everybody who argues that the criminal justice system as it stands today succeeds in doing anything except visiting unnecessary cruelty on people and families. And on every occasion, without exception, the experience of women is much, much, much worse. And the experience of women from Wales is worse than the experience of women in England and Scotland.

How can anybody come here—? How can anybody come here—? Wherever you sit in this Chamber, how can anybody come here and argue for the continuity of a system that fails and does harm day in, day out? Women will be failed, Gareth, whilst you were making that speech and whilst you're on your journey home to your constituency tomorrow, and people you represent will be failed, and harm will be done to them. Harm will be done to them and their families. We cannot stand by and allow that to happen. We cannot stand by and be spectators. We can not stand by and wring our hands on a Wednesday afternoon, saying how bad everything is, and do nothing and not argue the case for change. Read the Thomas commission. Read it. Read it, and see what it says—[Interruption.] I'm not arguing devolution means everything is better, and I accept the points you make about some of the health services in north Wales—I accept that—but you cannot stand by and see the systemic failure of women in the criminal justice system in Wales and do nothing. That's not acceptable. Whatever your point of view, that isn't acceptable.

Very quickly, because you're already almost out of time.

Sorry. I wasn't looking at the clock. We've heard during this debate, and I believe I heard correctly, that outcomes for women from England after release from the same prison were better than outcomes for women from Wales released from the same prison, where the women from England were presumably dependent on services on the English side of the border, whilst the women from Wales, on release, were dependent on devolved services on this side of the border. So, you're right that change is needed, and it's something I've called for for many years, but isn't that change closer to home?

No. That's a fundamental failure, because women are failed before they go to prison, as well as being in prison and after they come out, and what needs to happen is to have a holistic approach to policy. The point that you've made is that a holistic approach to policy does have an impact on outcomes, and I'm glad you've made that point.

And I'll finish—. I won't test your patience, Deputy Presiding Officer; I already have, I know. I will finish on this: it is important that UK Labour takes this matter seriously, and it's not good enough for UK Labour simply to make speeches on it and to wash their hands of the matter. I do expect change from UK Labour on this matter. The devolution of this is not an academic exercise, it's a fundamental exercise of human rights, and the abuse of women in the system must stop, the harm being made to women must stop, and we all have a responsibility to make sure that that happens and it happens now. Thank you.

I call on the Minister for Social Justice, Jane Hutt.

Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd. And I do welcome the debate today and give my thanks to the Equality and Social Justice Committee Chair and committee members for their work on this important inquiry.

The Welsh Government is committed to improving outcomes for the most vulnerable, and this is why support for women in the justice system and their families is so important. And we recognise that many women in the criminal justice system who are vulnerable and who have complex needs are particularly women who are violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence survivors, as you identified in your inquiry. I spoke at a summit at the end of March regarding the Centre for Women's Justice report, 'Double standard: Ending the unjust criminalisation of victims of violence against women and girls' and gave those statistics: 57 per cent of women currently coming into contact with the criminal justice system are victims of domestic abuse; 63 per cent of girls and young women serving sentences in the community have experienced rape or domestic abuse in an intimate partner relationship. So, the circumstances of women in this situation—. And we heard, as you said, with my visit to HMP Eastwood Park as well, the governor saying all of the residents, all of those who are resident in that prison, were themselves victims. All those women were themselves victims.

The committee has played a vital role in highlighting the needs of women in the criminal justice system. It's evident today as well in the debate and, of course, improving outcomes for Welsh women in the justice system, at least at present, requires close working with the Ministry of Justice. They have the responsibility for the reserved area of criminal justice, alongside progress that we are making in key devolved policy areas, including housing, mental health and substance misuse. But the committee report is so important because it highlights the ambition and achievements of what has been the women's justice blueprint, which is an innovative programme, jointly agreed between the Welsh and UK Governments and policing in Wales, to transform outcomes for women in contact with the criminal justice system, or at risk of coming into contact with it. And the inquiry recognises, as the Chair of the committee has said today, the positive impact of such work as the women's pathfinder whole-system approach and the 18-25 early intervention service, providing tailored support for women in the justice system. An impact evaluation of the pathfinder, the key findings of which were shared with the committee, suggested it's improving life outcomes for women and increasing their ability to access services. Prevention and diversion services are now embedded across Wales through the blueprint.

I call on Jenny Rathbone to reply to the debate.

Thank you, Minister, for that really resounding response—that's very welcome indeed, and I pay tribute to your personal commitment to this issue.

I've only got three minutes, so I'm going to have to rattle through it. Altaf Hussain talked about the importance of residential rehabilitation services, and, rightly, questioned why some of the budget that's been allocated for such services are returned to the Welsh Government. That's clearly something we need to look into—it's not something we did something about. But I’m fully aware that Altaf Hussain knows quite a lot about this subject, and he also questions why reoffending rates are much higher for women in Wales than they are in other places. So, we need to look into those things. Clearly, housing is a major issue.

Sioned Williams, very compassionate in her approach to the women she met in prison, and quite rightly puts pressure on the UK Labour Party to clarify exactly the pace of devolution of justice and policing to Wales. She explained how short sentences blow up women’s lives and are cruel.

Sarah Murphy also gave an impassioned contribution about the women who do not have access to Buvidal, which is typical of the criminal justice system in my experience. There’s just no join-up with the service that somebody was getting when they were in the community; when they go to prison they get a different service, and exactly the reverse happens in my experience, and this is a waste of public money all round. I think Sarah also mentioned the important point of how do women get to exercise their right to contact their Senedd Member. This was also emphasised by Jane Dodds, and it’s very disappointing that we have yet to hear from Pact, who are responsible for supporting women in prison. We need to follow this up.

I think Jane Dodd’s five-point plan—. I only wrote down three, but nevertheless, you were right to emphasise we have to get to the magistrates and ensure that they are aware of the blueprint, and that they’re signed up to it. As you said, prisons are always used to control the most marginalised—absolutely.

Gareth, I’m very glad that you are carrying on the good work of your predecessor, Ann Jones, who was a huge supporter of the north Wales women’s centre. I think that you have slightly misunderstood, and I don’t understand why you oppose recommendation 2 when your colleague, who’s heard all the evidence, is in favour of it.

It's always a privilege to hear from Alun Davies, and I acknowledge his genuine commitment to this really important issue, both as a Minister and as a backbencher. I know that you are really committed to ensuring that women are not treated in the way that we’re treating them. And indeed, men. If we are going to take away people’s right to be living in the community then we have to ensure that their time in prison is purposeful, and that is not the case at the moment. We clearly need to revisit the Thomas commission and remind UK Labour of what they need to do.

The proposal is to note the committee's report. Does any Member object? No. The motion is therefore agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

Item 7 this afternoon is the Welsh Conservatives debate, NHS dentistry. I call on Sam Rowlands to move the motion.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I start by thanking Darren Millar too for tabling this Welsh Conservative debate. We've tabled this debate today because it's clear that dentistry in Wales, along with many other parts of the NHS, is in crisis. The headline figure that starts our motion is from the British Dental Association, which states that 93 per cent of dental practices in Wales are no longer taking on new NHS adult patients. This is the worst rate in the UK, and it’s numbers like this that have created a need for this debate in our Chamber here today.

Now we could talk for a long time about the Labour-run NHS being the worst in the UK, with a bloated two-year waiting list, the dire mismanagement of Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, but we’re here today to highlight the disastrous running of Welsh dentistry, which continues in that Labour Party tradition of mismanagement of the NHS and mismanaging Wales. And this mismanagement is clearly shown in point 2 of our motion, which seeks for this place to recognise that over a third of dentists plan to reduce their Welsh NHS contracts, and I’m sure that’s a cause for concern for all Members in this Chamber.

And these overall statistics are, of course, a cause of serious concern for us, but within these are the individual experiences of people right across Wales, and perhaps I should declare an interest at this point, because my own family can’t get an NHS dentist, including my children. Indeed, children across Wales are being denied the chance to get an NHS dentist, with recent statistics from the Cardiff and Vale health board showing that nearly 7,500 children are still waiting to see a dentist. This is a damning indictment of the way dentistry in Wales is being run, and it’s having a terrible impact on the dental health of those children. Serious issues are likely being missed, and as a result, will get worse. For example, dentists, we know, play a role in screening for things like mouth cancer, and without regular check-ups, problems like this risk being missed.

Every part of Wales is poorly served, and in my region of North Wales, as I shared a few months ago, I decided to conduct some research of my own, and let me remind you that I contacted 69 NHS dentists in my region, spoke to 57 of those practices and the results were staggering: in all of North Wales, with a population of 700,000 people, not one NHS dental practice was able to take on new patients, with just four offering a place on a waiting list, likely to be over two years.

Our residents pay their taxes and should expect to receive decent public services in return. The Welsh Government gets £1.20 to spend on those public services from the UK Government for every £1 spent in England. And it’s clear that after 25 years, Labour mismanagement and poor leadership has ruined dentistry across the land. It’s a similar story across the rest of Wales. In October 2022, according to the BDA, only 17 per cent of dental practices in Monmouthshire were taking on new NHS patients. Across Mid and West Wales, not a single dentist practice was taking on new NHS patients, with Hywel Dda health board losing 20 dentists between 2018 and 2022.

We would do this by refunding tuition fees for those who work five years in Welsh NHS dental practices. What we are proposing is a practical and pragmatic approach to the recruitment crisis that we all know is in front of us, and we desperately need innovative ideas like this to tackle the problem. So, Deputy—oh, sorry, Llywydd—[Laughter.] So, Llywydd, ending on a positive there in terms of the options that we’re putting forward to see these things resolved, I call on all Members of the Chamber to support this Welsh Conservative motion and I look forward to hearing the rest of the debate. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

I have selected the two amendments to the motion. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendment 2 will be deselected. I call on the Minister for health to formally move amendment 1.

Formally.

That is formally moved. Rhun ap Iorwerth to move amendment 2, tabled in the name of Siân Gwenllian.

Thank you, Llywydd, and I thank the Conservatives for bringing forward this debate in the Senedd this afternoon. I think the motion itself does reflect clearly the severity of the challenges facing dentistry, and it’s not to overstate the fact to refer to public dentistry as a service that’s on its knees in Wales. We know how many people can't register, we know how difficult it is to recruit and retain staff to a sector where the workload is so heavy and the investment and pay and so on are insufficient. We know how many dentists decide that they don’t have any choice but to bring their NHS contracts to an end and offer private-only services. Investment in new technology is difficult, we heard. And in taking these and other factors together, what we have is a situation where there is a failure to be able to offer quick and basic treatment to the people who need it.

We, as a health committee in the Senedd, were recently shocked by some of the statistics that were presented to us as we did an inquiry into dental services. But maybe the most striking thing was that it was impossible to provide a figure for how many people were on waiting lists for NHS dental treatment. That is a lack of data on the most basic level that you can get, and it makes it so difficult to plan more sustainable services.

The Government’s amendment talks about the pandemic and its clear negative impact on dental practices, but, in truth, the problems that we’re talking about existed long before the pandemic, and the Government failed to resolve those problems at that time. And what’s frustrating, in looking at some of the obvious problems, is that we’re looking at things that are very basic, and ensuring a sustainable workforce is something that is vital in all parts of our health and care services. That means recruitment and training; it means retaining what we have, and ensuring that dentists and other ancillary staff continue to provide services in the NHS. Fifty-two dental practices brought NHS treatments to an end between 2019 and last year, and I’m fearful that we’ll see more this year.

But as is the case for so many health and care workers, a pay deal that’s below inflation doesn’t help, and there is no plan in place, as far as I can see, in terms of how to retain dentists in the public sector in Wales after they graduate. The Government has to innovate in order to tackle that problem. We should train more. One suggestion in our amendment, and something that I’ve called for several times, is to establish a dental school in north Wales as well as a medical school, and a recent report by the health committee does echo that suggestion.

It’s very clear to me in the number of letters and e-mails that I receive from constituents—and I know that’s true for many other Members across north Wales—that there are major problems in terms of accessing dental care. In Ynys Môn there are only four public dental practices available and the others have gone private because they can’t deal with the requirements within the NHS contract, and because of the stress that was being placed, according to them, on staff and so forth. And even though there’s nothing uncommon, for many years, in seeing dentists working in the private sector, the equation and the balance between public and private in the NHS is out of kilter at present.

We have a three-tier system. Let’s remind ourselves what those three tiers are: those who can afford private care, those who have NHS care, and those who can’t afford to go private and don't have access to NHS services. And unfortunately, that final tier is growing very quickly across Wales. Where problems exist across Wales, it’s important that we feed dentists into that system. We know that north Wales is one of the areas where there are problems.

First of all, I'll probably expand a little bit further on what Rhun ap Iorwerth has outlined in regard to the three-tier system that we have operating in Wales at the moment. First of all, we've got those people who can access an NHS dentist. They're the fortunate group of people. Then we've got people who pay to go privately. Actually, there are two sets of people there. There are those that can afford it easily and there are those that can't afford it but they pay privately anyway, because the only alternative is to have no dental care at all. So, they make life choices that allow them to pay privately, which puts them in a difficult position, of course. Then we've got the third group of people who can't afford to pay privately, so they don't go privately, and they can't get access to an NHS dentist either. Those are the people that are in the most difficult position of all, and that's why we've got a three-tier dental system operating in Wales.

I think back to last year, when one of my constituents, Dafydd Williams from Newtown, was reported on the BBC travelling from Newtown to Telford—100 miles away—to get a dentist, a two and a half hour round trip. I think of another constituent of mine travelling to Brecon. Powys residents aren't any different, I'm afraid, to most other residents across Wales, because in the county of Powys, there are no dentists taking on new NHS patients. At least, that was the case at the time of the FOI request when it went in, some months back. But Powys isn't alone in that. There are nine other local authority areas as well that are in exactly the same position. And of course there are fortunate people—. I say 'fortunate'—the one constituent going to Brecon, Dafydd going to Telford. I say 'fortunate' because they can make their own way there. But many constituents of mine won't be able to make that journey because there's not adequate public transport available. So, there are huge inequalities, I would suggest, Minister, in this regard.

Now, the Minister will say that the new NHS contracts with dentists will lead policy towards widening up access to patients. Well, fair enough—that's what we all want, isn't it? But the British Dental Association says that these new NHS contracts, which emphasise seeing new patients, are a bad deal to those already registered in a practice. Local dentists have told me their frustrations first-hand about their concerns about the difficulty of having the payment for dentistry work set in stone when they have to cover their overheads. This puts huge pressure and huge financial strain, leaving them with no choice but to reduce the amount of NHS patients they take on, and this makes it even more difficult for patients to find affordable dental care.

This is the big issue, I think, for me. We've talked about a scandal, or a crisis, if you like—a crisis in dentistry in Wales. That, I think, we can all agree on. I even hope the Minister will agree that we've got a dentistry crisis. But we don't know the scale of the crisis. That's significant, because how can we fix the problem if the Government doesn't actually know how many people are on NHS waiting lists? This is what we've got to crack. There should be a centralised waiting list. This is absolutely crucial as well. We need to know, in order to resolve the issues, how many people are actually waiting.

You've got 10 seconds to say it. [Laughter.]

In that case, I look forward to the debate today, but, particularly, I would say, please, if you haven't done so, read our report on dentistry, it's something to really get your teeth into.

I will avoid puns. Along with other Members of the Senedd, I met the local dental committee in West Glamorgan. I will start and end with the same request—that the Minister directly engages with the representative body of NHS dentists, and does not have their views filtered through the chief dental officer, who they tell me has never worked in an NHS dental practice, and has no adviser who works in an NHS dental practice.

Those dentists carrying out NHS work are committed to the principles of the national health service. The issues they raised included that the new contract is 25 per cent based on units of dental activity, and 75 per cent new metrics. Dentists signed up to the contract without the detail, which emerged later. This was meant to be a lenient learning year, but that does not appear to have happened. There's a programme to encourage Welsh-trained dentists to stay in Wales by offering a bursary for staying and also moving into rural areas, which I think is good.

Can I just say there's a need for a new dental school in Wales? Can I suggest Swansea University as a possible site? Though I'm sure people here are going to suggest Bangor. But I think it is important that we have another dental centre. That is important. If we haven't got enough dentists, how about training some more? This seems to be something that we've never quite mastered.

A number of issues have emerged that are affecting dental care, and may mean that many dentists exit the contract in April. Around 75 per cent of dentists surveyed by the British Dental Association said that the contract was not working for them. The co-production meetings on the contract have increasingly lacked co-production. They also said the budget for NHS dentistry only covers 50 per cent of the population. Private work subsidises their NHS work at present. And these are people who are committed to NHS dentistry. They are not people who are against it. They are not the ones who jumped out at the first possible opportunity when they found they could make more money by doing private work; they all went 10 to 15 years ago.

In 1948, NHS dentistry was introduced as part of the newly formed national health service. There were three fundamental principles: no-one should ever have to worry about being unable to afford necessary medical care; care would be provided free at the point of delivery; and care would be based upon clinical need. The dental contract has gone through many changes. The original payment system was a fee per item, where dentists were paid for each treatment they provided. Then there was capitation, where dentists were paid a fixed amount for patients, regardless of treatment. This was used between 1951 and 1990, and worked well.

The system was changed in 1990, involving dentists being paid a fee for each treatment provided, as well as an allowance for registration of adult and child patients. The units of dental activity was introduced in 2006. The bands involved dentists being paid for a set number of dental activities per year, with each band of treatment assigned a certain number of units. The prototype A and B system was introduced in 2011 as a trial for a new contract system. There were two prototypes in Wales. One was the quality and outcome pilot, and the second, a children and young people's pilot. Both removed the unit of dental activity, and gave clinical freedom to make clinical judgment on what is best for the patient.

I thank my colleague, Russell, for tabling this important timely debate and, Russ, you are very right in saying that NHS dentistry, despite what the Welsh Government would have you believe, is in crisis—a crisis that started long before COVID hit our shores, but made much worse by the pandemic and the Welsh Government's change to the contract of dentist payments.

Last Thursday evening, I attended, along with Mike and Sioned, a special meeting with the Morgannwg Local Dental Committee. Nearly 50 local dentists, practice managers, dental nurses, hygienists, and therapists spent an evening explaining to us politicians why NHS dentistry was suffering in the Swansea bay health board. I was truly shocked by the depth of feeling that they are being let down by Welsh Government, but heartened by the absolute commitment of all those who attended to maintaining NHS dental provision.

Dentists feel they're not being listened to, and there were concerns raised at the meeting about the suitability of advice being given to Welsh Government. The fact that the chief dental officer had never worked in an NHS dental practice was a cause of concern in the minds of the dentists operating at the coalface. This has led to a dental contract totally unsuitable for dentists, and worse for patients. As one dentist put it, the contract is bad for dentists, but horrific for patients. It is a deformed contract, not a reformed one. Many practices have been forced to rely upon private patients in order to subsidise their NHS patients as the contract is capped. One practice told us that they have 13,000 patients, but only received funding for half that number. The dental contract is driven by targets, preferring quantity over quality. This is forcing many dentists to abandon NHS contracts or retire altogether.

Across my local health board, only 40 per cent of dentists are now doing NHS work. With a large number of dentists set to retire over the next few years, this is set to get a lot worse. Only 38 per cent of recruitment campaigns to replace the dentists have been successful. Swansea bay has 16 training practices and, over the past five years, they have trained 70 foundation dentists, yet only nine remain in the area. Cardiff School of Dentistry only trains 70 dental students and a handful of dental therapy students each year—nowhere near enough to fully staff our practices to provide dental treatment to the Welsh public. But, when you consider that a student can leave the dental school and go straight into private practice, doing cosmetic work without having to go through the additional years of foundational training, you can see why it is an attractive option, particularly when they can earn far more than they would on the NHS. Which is why our motion not only calls for reform of the dental contract, but also to refund tuition fees for those who work for five years in Welsh NHS dental practices. We have to incentivise people to pursue a career in NHS dental practice. The dentists who spoke to us last week are thoroughly committed to the NHS, and I would like to put on record my thanks to their dedication. Let's help them look after the nation's dental health by making the Welsh NHS the best place in the world to practice dental medicine. I urge colleagues to support this motion. Thank you very much.

Clearly, I'm not the only Member who's been undertaking some research across north Wales. My office has contacted and spoken with 97 per cent of all dental practices across the north and, of those we spoke with, only 11 per cent are taking NHS patients on in the next 12 months. The average wait for an NHS space was two years. Just over a half of them are taking children on as NHS patients, and the waiting times for NHS children can be anywhere from three months to three years, with the average being two years. Now, that's a damning indictment, and it does reveal the scale of Labour's rotten record on dental services.

The figures are damning, and it does echo something the Minister's refused to acknowledge in the past, but that has to be acknowledged now. There are three tiers within the service, as we've heard. There are those who can access NHS services, and they are very fortunate these days, and they're becoming few and far between. There are those who can't access NHS services but they can afford private treatment. They're fortunate, but, as we've heard, some perhaps can't really afford to pay but they have little choice. And there are some—and this is a cohort that's increasing week on week, month on month—who don't have access to NHS services and can't afford to pay for private services. And the Government hasn't tackled that issue, and they are the people who will pay the price not only in terms of their dental health, but also in terms of their mental health. Because I come across cases now, in my casework, of people, particularly young people, some waiting for orthodontic treatment, having been waiting a long time and are starting to feel that that is impacting on their mental health, and I do think we have to acknowledge that.

So, I would encourage Members to support Plaid Cymru's amendment to this motion and that we do encourage the Government to review dental contracts, that we do look at strengthening dental training provision, and that we need to develop a strategy to retain the current workforce because, as we see with GPs, they are leaving in numbers that are far too high and that's making a bad situation worse.

An investigation just last year by the British Dental Association found that 93 per cent of dental practices in Wales were no longer taking on new NHS adult patients. That's an increase of 8 per cent since 2019. In 2021-22, there were 1,420 dentists with NHS activity recorded in Wales—86 fewer dentists than in 2018-19. And, to crown the crisis, the BDA survey of 250 dentists in Wales found that over a third plan to further reduce their Welsh NHS contracts.

Now, Minister, you've described to us access to dental services as 'challenging' for some people in Wales. In Aberconwy, it is impossible. Countless constituents have told me that they're going private, and some now are even struggling to go private, because of the pressure now on private practice because we just haven't got any access to NHS. I know of some who have to travel as far as two hours away to Dolgellau for NHS dental care. What we have in Aberconwy is clear evidence that the Health and Social Care Committee is right that a three-tier system exists: people who can access private treatment; people who can access NHS treatment; and people who are left, actually, unable to access either, and it's a disgrace.

So, to help my local constituents, I have been liaising with Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board. They've advised me that several practices are considering expanding and view the academy practice model as a good way of being able to do this. It enables them to attract colleagues to come and work in the practice, as they can offer staff more than just delivery of general dentistry to the population. The health board have, earlier this year, sent their proposals to you, to the Welsh Government, for a tendering process. The procurement will be for additional activity in existing practices or for set-up of new practices and, I believe, it has a total combined value of £1.3 million per annum that is recurrent funding. Thankfully, the procurement exercise identifies the health board's priority areas of need for access, which include a number within my constituency, and those areas are Conwy town, Betws-y-coed and Llandudno. So, I would be pleased to learn, Minister, whether you have an update also on the north Wales health board's £1.3 million plan that could help Aberconwy and other priority areas: Dwyfor Meirionnydd, Anglesey, Flintshire, Abergele, Pensarn, Deeside and Rhyl.

Another welcome action in the priority areas is the trial use of a mobile dental unit at Ysgol y Moelwyn, Blaenau Ffestiniog. Oral health programmes should also be delivered through schools. Do you know, we were brought up that we had to have regular check-ups, and, in those days, the dentist's chair used to be rather frightening, but, every six months, we were marched to have check-ups and any dentistry that we needed. I have children of five and six who have never, ever seen a dentist, and I just think that we're sitting on a ticking time-bomb, because those children will grow up with teeth that are decayed, and, as they become adults, lacking in confidence because of—. I just think, in this day and age—. We are in 2023, and I have children who have never seen a dentist. It's shocking. It's wrong that 80 per cent of teachers are already providing pupils with toothpaste and brushes, with 25 per cent saying they have pupils who miss school because of poor oral hygiene, and 40 per cent reporting that they have students—students—who are socially excluded because of oral hygiene issues.

You need to bring your comments to an end now.

I am doing now. The dental sector is in crisis, but I'm clear that a lot can be done to undo damage and deliver stability for professionals and patients. Diolch yn fawr.

Eighteen months ago, I launched a survey of residents in Mid and West Wales, to look at their experiences of dentistry, and I extended that 12 months ago to people in Wales, to do that via our website. These are just a couple of cases that I wanted to highlight with you, because this is all about the people that we represent. So, the first one is:

'Because I was unable to access an NHS dentist, and for the first time in 38 years I now qualify for free treatment due to my income and age, my tooth had disintegrated and I was forced to find a private practice. It cost me £75—£75 that, for me, could have gone towards my energy bills and my dwindling food bills.'

The second one:

'I'm writing to you in the hope of finding out the situation regarding children's brace appointments. My daughter is 14 years old and she has waited 18 months for a brace to be fitted.'

And, indeed, Llyr referred to this earlier.

'We have had to go now to an orthodontist in Hereford, a trip of around an hour, and we have to go there between four and six weeks, every week. The likelihood is that she will be wearing a brace for around two and a half years, and we will have to continue to visit there.'

These are situations that I know are not uncommon. And I'd like to just raise, if I may, Minister, three issues, and I know we've talked about this a lot here in the Senedd, and I've raised this, as have a number of people over the years. The three issues I just wanted to raise are, first, the role of the private sector. There is an additional problem where services are provided by corporate organisations, particularly in rural areas. The closure of a single NHS dentist can lead to the effective loss of NHS services over a wide area, because there is unlikely to be another practice available that's willing to take on those displaced patients. So, I'd like to hear from you, Minister, what your views are on some of those bigger corporate organisations and how we can continue to hold them within our NHS dentist services.

I want to just touch quickly on waiting lists, which Russell and Rhun have mentioned. I asked all of the health boards across Wales what their dentist waiting lists were, and only two of them could tell me that they actually had a waiting list. So, we don’t know who is waiting where, for how long, whether we commission services in one place or another, where best to target our recruitment, where best to send patients requiring emergency care. This is, as we’ve heard, contrary to every single aspect of our health services, and surely we do need now to have a centralised waiting list that is going to be helpful, I hope, to you. So I’d welcome an update, if I may, on the development of waiting lists.

It's probably dentistry that has moved further away from Bevan’s idea, and the founding principles of the national health service, than any other aspect. I stand to be corrected by Mike Hedges at least—

No. Unfortunately, you're right.

I’m right—there we go. And when we look back at that, it’s both Labour and Conservative Governments who’ve done that. It was Labour that first introduced charges for dentistry back in 1951, and the Conservatives were anxious not to be outdone and introduced more legislation in 1952. One of the first acts of that postwar Conservative Government was to increase dental charges and to increase costs for people who wanted to access the health service. At least they’ve been consistent over the years. And when you look hard at what both parties have done—and I’ve heard a lot from the Conservatives about the failures of this Government here—you also need to look at the record of Conservative Governments over the years that haven’t delivered anything except increased costs and lower services for the national health service.

But it’s important as well that we hold this Government to account, and I do regret sometimes when I see Welsh Government proposing 'delete all' amendments to debates on a Wednesday afternoon, because it is important that we’re able to look and take a review of how the Welsh Government is delivering on some of our services, and there are clearly difficulties facing dentistry across Wales. You don’t have to sit on opposition benches to recognise the issues facing dentistry in Wales. Certainly, as somebody who’s represented both mid and west Wales and Blaenau Gwent, if I look back at my time here, dentistry is one of those issues that has been a consistent problem in every part of the country that I’ve represented, whether it’s parts of north Wales or today, in the south Wales Valleys. There are difficulties with access, but those difficulties are worse today than they were a decade ago, and we need to recognise that.

The struggle to access NHS dentists is acute. It’s real for people. Last year, a dental practice in Ebbw Vale decided to go private and charge people, some of the poorest people in this country, £20 a month to access dentistry. People simply couldn’t afford it. They were terrified. They were being deprived of a service that Bevan told them was for life, and they were being deprived of it under a Labour Government, and we need to recognise that. And we need to recognise that the delivery of these services is part of the national health service that we have determined is a key part of what we exist to deliver, and it isn’t happening today.

And Jane Dodds is absolutely right. I hear the Conservative benches making all these remarks about the failures of the Welsh Government. Brexit has caused difficulties—[Interruption.] Well, I’m willing to take an intervention, Janet. I know you haven't scripted it, but I'm happy to take an intervention. I'm happy to take an intervention if you—

Okay. Would you give me one example where Brexit has actually caused this problem when, for 25 years, it is this Welsh Government that's been in power with some help from Plaid Cymru? At the end of the day, you get the funding package—

Janet, Janet, Janet, I—

—of £1.20, as opposed to £1 in England, and yet the problems in dentistry are here in Wales.

Janet, the loss of dentists as a consequence of Brexit has been well described—

So, why is everyone moaning about the contracts and the funding, then?

—and has been described by dentists up and down the country. It's recognised by the UK Government as well, so it's not just fruit pickers we've lost, we've lost real, important service providers. You need to recognise that, and you need to recognise the damage that that is doing to people in this country and in our communities. So, standing here and grandstanding on a Wednesday afternoon doesn't solve those problems.

But, let me say this—what I want to say to you, Minister, is that the current process of contract negotiation is not resolving the situations that we're facing. It's not resolving the situation. I speak to dentists on a regular basis in my constituency, and they tell me uniformly that the current issues with contracts are not delivering the services that people require. We need a different approach on that, we need a different approach to contract negotiation, and we need a different approach to the contracts that are being delivered.

There is a huge weight of numbers, I'm told by dentists, people waiting for basic services. Of course, when they do finally get those services, they require more interventions because their teeth and their dental hygiene have declined more in the wait for services. It's actually costing us more to keep people waiting than it is to resolve the situation. So, we do need to resolve the contracts, we do need to ensure that we do train dentists. We do need to ensure that we make clear that we require more services. We do need to ensure that the contract negotiations take place in a way that is a positive experience, and not the current, negative experience for dentists.

And we need to ensure that we keep in mind the ambitions and the visions of Bevan. We are going to be celebrating—and we will celebrate, I think, on this side of the Chamber, at least—the seventy-fifth anniversary of the national health service in July. When we do that, let us celebrate not simply an institution, but the people and the services it delivers for people up and down Wales. I can see Altaf nodding in agreement, and we recognise your service to people in Wales, and we thank you for it, let me say that. Right across the Chamber, we thank you for that. So, let us ensure that we mark the seventy-fifth anniversary of the NHS by redoubling our efforts to meet Bevan's vaulting ambitions for the people of this country.

I've been the patient of an NHS dentist for all of my 51 years till this month. My dentist in Swansea told me and 9,000 others like me that I could no longer receive NHS treatment at my practice. My teenage son hasn't had a check-up since 2019, he hasn't seen a dentist. On their website, Swansea Bay University Health Board helpfully state,

'Across Wales there is currently a high demand from patients looking for an NHS dentist. The health board does not hold a list of practices taking on NHS patients'.

It tells anyone

'looking for an NHS dentist to contact a number of practices in their local area'

to see if they can be offered an appointment, to see if they can be put on a waiting list. You can put your postcode in to do this, I did this, of all of the five options that popped up, three were only taking on children, the waiting times for them all varied between two and four years—four years.

Stories like mine are repeated thousands of times throughout Wales. We've heard many of them this afternoon. Many of my constituents who have had an NHS dentist for years are baffled as to why they can't see their dentist, or those who have lost their NHS dentists can't understand why they can't get access to another one. They feel like they've pushed to the back of the queue. I've received so much correspondence on this: a married couple who've been patients at an NHS practice in Neath for over 10 years, last seen by a dentist in 2019. Another constituent from Cimla managed to get on an NHS list of dentists in Port Talbot, because she could no longer afford, given the cost-of-living crisis, the monthly charge of her private dentist. But, because she doesn't have a car, she finds transport there really difficult and costly. She hasn’t been seen, either, for three years now, but feels really frustrated and confused that that same practice is advertising appointments for new patients, those who have never been NHS patients.

If you have an urgent need, yes, you can phone 111 for help for finding an emergency dentist and you have to be experiencing severe pain, pain that can’t be cured with pain relief, or swelling, or ulcers that haven’t healed within a week. But I’ve had people tell me about toothache that, yes, can be eased by painkillers, which is having a huge effect on their ability to sleep, work and socialise. If you lose a cap or a filling, this isn’t classed as an emergency, although as Llyr pointed out, your confidence in your appearance can have a huge psychological effect on you and your ability to work or socialise, and when we raise these cases, dentists tell us that historic NHS patients are facing these delays for what is classed as non-urgent work because of the consequences of the new metrics of the reformed contract, with its emphasis on accepting new patients. Of course that’s something we want to see, but quite rightly, you said, Llyr, that there is an imbalance here, and Rhun also referred to this, about this equation that is somehow not balancing up anymore.

The Minister to reply.

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. It was only 10 weeks ago that I gave an oral statement providing Members with an update on NHS dentistry, but I recognise that this remains an important issue for people across Wales. I certainly get as many e-mails on this as any other issue in my mailbag, and I know that this is an issue of great concern to Members here in the Chamber, but more importantly, to the constituents we all represent.

You will all be aware that the pandemic has put additional pressure on what was already a challenging situation in relation to access to NHS dentistry in Wales. So, those new rules that protect dentists from potential airborne diseases have meant that we won’t be able to revert to pre-pandemic levels without an increase in capacity or a new approach. But we are recovering. Now, many of you have talked today, and you don’t sound like it feels like it’s recovering, but it is recovering. A million patients received NHS dental care in Wales last year—that’s a 32 per cent increase on the previous year. And 1.3 million courses of treatment were delivered—that’s a 30 per cent increase, compared to the year before as well.

I’m just going to turn to the motion now, and what I recognise is that we’ve got a long way to go on this issue. We’ve got a huge amount of work to do. It’s not going to be fixed overnight, and frankly, I need a lot of money to fix it, and that’s something that, at the moment, is in short supply. So, none of this is going to be easy. We all want it to happen, but frankly, it is not going to happen overnight, and I think it’s really important that I level with everyone about that.

Now, I understand that the British Dental Association and the BBC undertook that investigation last summer, and I’m afraid I just don’t recognise the reported outcomes, because 2022-23 was the first year in which the overwhelming majority of practices in Wales were operating under those new reform arrangements: 78 per cent of practices, accounting for 89 per cent of expenditure, were required to see new patients—they were required. That’s not something that’s in the English dental contract, but it is now in the Welsh contract. And they did. The fact is that they saw 174,000 new patients last year. So, it simply can’t be true that 93 per cent of practices did not take on a new adult patient.

Now, contract terminations and variations are inevitable and they’ve always taken place, and people retire; they leave for other reasons. And it’s true that we’ve seen perhaps more than we’d like to recently, but it’s still a relatively small number—only 5 per cent of contracts were returned last year. That’s 21 contracts, out of 413. Now, we’re just about to start the renegotiations on the new contract. But I think it’s probably worth pointing out that there are times—and it’s not ideal, but there are times—when those returns actually provide opportunities, partly because, actually, the contracts, the numbers of people that we have to treat, they don’t diminish, they just get redistributed to other areas. Now, sometimes that causes a geographical problem and people need to travel a bit further.

But, for example, in north Wales, the new dental academy, one of the reasons we were able to put that together is because some of the contracts were terminated and we were able to amalgamate them together. So, we’ve now got general dentistry, community dentistry and education, all of that, coming together because some of those contracts were terminated. And I think that academy will provide new premises that’ll serve patients in the Bangor area for many years to come—15,000 per year once it’s fully operational. And Alun Davies, I’m sure, will be pleased to hear that there’s a new practice in Ebbw Vale opening this July—all NHS patients. And that, again, has been funded because a large contract in that area was handed back. So, on variations, there have been some contract reductions—of course, we’ve got to recognise that—but we have seen more contracts increase in value than have been reduced.

Now, the choice of whether to offer the NHS service is not something that I can make—that is up to the dentist. These are, on the whole, independent practitioners. So, there are three forms of dentistry, and the ones that serve the general public are generally independent practitioners. They can’t be forced to work for the NHS. So, some clearly feel that providing a service only to private patients does give them the flexibility to provide a wider range of dental and aesthetic services. And sometimes it is more financially advantageous for them and it does require them to see fewer patients. But the income is not guaranteed and that’s why the certainty that NHS activity offers remains attractive to so many dentists.

I just want to clarify some misconceptions around registration. There is no registration in NHS dentistry, nor has there been since 2006, when the unit of dental activity contract was introduced. Now, that’s not to say there shouldn’t be one, and that’s why we’ve heard what the committee has asked us to do. We’ve been working very closely with the Member for Mid and West Wales, who I know has been really pushing us on this issue in terms of having a central data registry, and, hopefully, that’s going to be in place by the end of this year. Because you’re quite right: we need to know the scale of the problem in order to get our hands around it to understand, ‘Right, what exactly do we need to do to correct the situation?’

We want to reach a position where everyone in Wales who needs dental care can access dental care. We estimate that around 20 per cent of the public were using private dentistry pre pandemic. We understand that some feel that they have been pushed into the private sector because they had difficulty in accessing an NHS dentist, but there isn't 100 per cent demand for NHS dentistry here in Wales. Now, having said that, there is a gap, and I want to acknowledge that there is a gap, and it will take us some time to deal with that. We've made progress, but there is quite a long way to go.

So, we are going to try and reform the contract so that NHS work is more attractive to the current workforce. We're also, by increasing the number of training places across the whole dental team, not just dentists but also dental therapists too—. Before long, we will begin the tripartite negotiations on the new dental contract. This will, hopefully, give an assurance to the profession on the future of dentistry in Wales. We are also training more nurses, hygienists and therapists than ever before, and this all requires new investment, which is difficult, given the current financial restrictions placed upon us. Now, this is an important issue for us all, but it's worth recognising that these financial constraints are partly because of the Conservative Government, but it's also important that we acknowledge that this wasn't on the list of Plaid Cymru's priorities: not a penny—not a penny—of the partnership agreement came to help with this situation. We're also trying to identify and create new and innovative ways of upskilling and improving career pathways within dentistry. In order to develop an effective service, we need to use a mix of skills in order to get a balanced dental team.

I will have to ask the Minister to bring her contribution to a close now.

So, unfortunately we can't accept the original motion. I spent the weekend rereading the committee's report, and I think there are many valid points within it, and I do think it's important that we follow up on those. So, unfortunately, I can't accept the unamended motion, because there are a few inaccuracies contained within it. Thank you.

I think the Minister may have used a word in her contribution that she may not have intended to use—

No, it was really bad. My mother's going to be very upset with me. I apologise.

Yes. Your mother would not be happy with the use of that word, and you said it so gently, I think most people didn't notice, so we'll consider it—. We'll pass by and we'll move on to Darren Millar, to respond to the debate.

Thank you, Presiding Officer, and thank you to everybody who's taken part in this debate. I think it has been a level-headed debate, for the best part, and it's quite clear that we have a dentistry crisis across the country.

I was a little disappointed with the Minister's response. It did sound rather complacent to me. The Minister, as usual, likes to try to pass the buck to the other end of the M4 for something that has been devolved to Wales for over a quarter of a century—over a quarter of a century. I hear people baulking about Brexit having caused this crisis. That's absolute nonsense. We shouldn't need to have to import dentists into Wales. Our Government should have planned its workforce better to make sure that we had sufficient numbers being trained and paid properly to stay in our system. And I appreciate, now, that the Minister has inherited a very big hole that she has to try and climb out of, in terms of the mess that she had from the previous Ministers in the Welsh Government who held this portfolio, but she's got an awful lot more work to do than simply blaming somebody else. She needs to accept more responsibility for the state of the NHS in Wales, including this issue, so that we can get it sorted.

Now, I heard the Minister, once again, suggesting that well over 100,000 new patients had been seen in Wales as a result of the contract reforms. We know that the British Dental Association said that the Government was misleading people by quoting these sorts of figures. They said, and I quote, that you have been 'cooking the books' in terms of the way that you have been describing things to this Senedd Chamber. And they've said this, and I will quote here—Russell Gidney, of the BDA Welsh general dental practice committee, he said this:

'for every new patient seen, a dozen historic patients could lose access to NHS dentistry'

because dental practices are closing. So, if you've got one in 20—. Even the Minister says that one in 20 have closed in the past 12 months. You said 5 per cent of practices have handed back their contracts; that's one in 20. You sound pretty complacent to me about it. But if it's one in 20 and each of one of those has got, say, 9,000 patients, as Sioned Williams's practice has, and Ruthin Dental Practice has in my own constituency, who are all now high and dry without an NHS dentist, then you're talking many hundreds of thousands of people, not just the 100,000-odd that you said who have managed to find access. They're just people floating around the system that have been de-registered in one place, desperately searching for another. And most of them still don't get access to an NHS dentist. So, I think we need to be less complacent, and what we need is a clear set of actions that you are going to take.

Now, frankly, this new contract is an absolute disaster. It is not working. It was supposed to be a learning year last year, and the amounts and requirements, the targets that you'd set for practices, were supposed to be adjusted based on that learning year for the current financial year that we're now in. And it's because most of those were not adjusted that more and more dentists now are handing back their contracts and saying, 'We're not prepared to do dentistry work in the NHS.'

Mike Hedges, I thought, made a fantastically important point, and that is, if you have a chief dental officer who's got no experience in an NHS dentistry practice, then you're not going to have a lot of confidence that they're going to be the best person to lead the negotiations to develop a new contract. And I think that that experience that people are having now across Wales speaks for itself. Now, I don't know the chief dental officer; I wish that individual all the very best in trying to sort this mess out. But I think the fact that the profession doesn't appear to have a great deal of confidence in that individual is something that the Minister ought to consider.

Now, I hear the bleating—I hear the bleating all of the time about the Welsh Government not having the money to invest in NHS dentistry. We all know—it's been rehearsed here today; Janet Finch-Saunders made mention of it, so did Sam Rowlands—that, for every £1 that's spent on an NHS dentistry episode in England, Wales gets £1.20 to spend here. On top of that, we also know that the Welsh Government returned 155 million quid, that it couldn't find an opportunity to spend that money on in the last financial year. And we know that they've poured almost £0.25 billion down the drain on a nationalised airport that they didn't have to spend. So, when people bleat—[Interruption.]—when people bleat that you do not have the resources, I'm sorry, Minister, it just doesn't hold water, that argument, in any way, shape or form.

Will you take an intervention?

I'll happily take an intervention.

One of the issues raised, actually, in the committee, when we took evidence on this, was that dentists would say, 'Oh, we've got too much bureaucracy', but I would be saying and arguing back, 'Yes, but we need that data. We want more data.' But what they said was, 'There's a lot of duplication going on.' So, they're forever—. Because we've not got the IT systems in place, what they're finding is they're putting the data in, and then a dentist or a dentist assistant has to then re-put e-mails, address, telephone numbers in a new form. So, it's about making that much more streamlined and making sure we've got a system that can work across Wales and across dentistry practices.

That's absolutely what we need and, hopefully, some of the innovation that we're seeing with the use of technology in the NHS now, with the app that we're finally getting, after £15 million has been spent, will help to address some of those concerns and make it more streamlined, because I recognise them when I speak to dentists in my own area.

So, we heard that there are problems in Swansea, we heard that there are problems in north Wales, in west Wales—all over the nation—in mid Wales as well with Jane Dodds's remarks. We have to get to grips with this problem once and for all. Yes, we need incentives for people to train in Wales. Yes, we need incentives for them to work in the NHS once they are trained. Yes, we need to know the number of people that we need to plan to train for, and that's why this list is so important, and that's why we've got to invest more money into the system in order to make this thing work.

If I can just end, if I may, just on the subject of emergency dental appointments. So, in north Wales, you're told, 'You haven't got a dentist, don't worry, there's the emergency dental line.' I had the misfortune of eating one of my mother's samosas over the summer. [Members of the Senedd: 'Oh.'] Yes, well, you haven't tried them. There was a pea in there that was so hard it cracked my tooth. So, I called the emergency dental line, because, unfortunately, it happened to be on a bank holiday weekend, only to be told—. It was very sore, very sharp, I couldn't—. Exactly. So, I was told I was eligible for an appointment. They gave me a telephone number to call. I had to dial that number, before I could get through to a human being, 100 times before I finally got through. Now, when I got through, I got my appointment, got sorted. [Interruption.] Yes, I'm sure she is. I managed to get it sorted. But it shows you that so many other people are in a similar situation, so we need to increase the capacity, in the short term, of those emergency dental services until we get the practices up to speed with their capacity. Thank you for your indulgence, Presiding Officer.

The proposal is to agree the motion without amendment. Does any Member object? [Objection.] There are objections. We will therefore move to voting time for voting on that item and other items.

Unless three Members wish for the bell to be rung, we will proceed directly to the first vote. The first vote is on the motion under Standing Order 26.45 to consider further amendments to the Agriculture (Wales) Bill at Report Stage. I call for a vote on the motion, tabled in the name of Lesley Griffiths. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 34, 15 abstentions and 1 against, therefore the motion is agreed.

Let me pause for one second.

The next vote will be a vote on item 5, the debate on the general principles of the Food (Wales) Bill. I call for a vote on the motion, tabled in the name of Peter Fox. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 24, 1 abstention, 25 against, and therefore the motion is not agreed.

The next votes will be on item 7, the Welsh Conservatives debate on NHS dentistry. I call for a vote on the motion, tabled in the name of Darren Millar. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 15, no abstentions, 35 against, and therefore the motion is agreed—is not agreed, forgive me.

One moment of success there, Darren Millar. I corrected myself.

Amendment 1 is next. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendment 2 will be deselected. I call for a vote on amendment 1, tabled in the name of Lesley Griffiths. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 25, no abstentions, 25 against, and therefore, I use my casting vote against the amendment. And therefore, the amendment is not agreed—25 for, 26 against.

Amendment 2 is next. I call for a vote on amendment 2, tabled in the name of Siân Gwenllian. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 25, no abstentions, 25 against. I use my casting vote against the amendment, and the amendment is not agreed—25 in favour, 26 against. Amendment 2 is also not agreed.

Nothing is agreed in that series of votes. That concludes voting time, therefore.

We will now move on to the short debate. And the short debate this afternoon is in the name of Tom Giffard, and I will invite Tom Giffard to speak once Members have left the Chamber.

I'm sure Members will be leaving quietly, if they are leaving, and then I'll ask Tom Giffard to start the short debate.

Diolch yn fawr iawn, Llywydd. I'm honoured to be bringing this short debate to the Chamber this evening, and I know, like me, Llywydd, you'll be looking forward to hearing from Laura Anne Jones, Altaf Hussain, Natasha Asghar, and James Evans, to whom I've given a minute each of my time. I greatly look forward to hearing their contributions, as well as the Minister's response as this debate progresses.

Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II represented the embodiment of selfless dedication to duty. At just 25, she had an enormous responsibility placed upon her, one that, before the abdication of her uncle, no-one could possibly have expected that she would one day have to face. And yet, as our longest reigning monarch, she rose to the task like few people in the history of our country ever have. She represented service to the nation, a recognition that we are all part of something greater than any one individual. As I said when we met to offer our condolences last year, she truly put the 'great' into Great Britain. And I was honoured to be able to meet her when she came to open the Senedd, and it's a moment that I personally will never forget.

And in that debate, I also said that she was:

'a builder of bridges, because whether you voted Labour or Conservative you had one Queen; whether you were born in the UK or came here to build a better life, you had one Queen; held a faith or didn't, young or old, supported Swansea City or Cardiff City; whether you're a unionist or a separatist; whether you're a monarchist or a republican, you had one Queen.'

I've quoted myself there like only Mark Isherwood could. [Laughter.] And from the enormous volume of correspondence I've received, I know how much Queen Elizabeth meant to so many people right across Wales. Both she and the King embody a long-standing dedication to Wales, our history, our culture and our values. From her regular royal engagements, to her meetings with so many wonderful voluntary and community organisations, to a very personal connection to the community of Aberfan, following their grief and tragedy, Her late Majesty's importance to us here in Wales is difficult to overstate.

And it wasn't just Wales or the United Kingdom either. As head of the Commonwealth, an organisation to which she devoted so much time and affection, she remained a much-loved figure. She stood above the political disputes of the day, and remained a unifying figure, even when political debate surrounding the monarchy and the Commonwealth intercepted, the Queen always remained admirably above the fray. For example, in Australia, whatever side of the republican debate people were, Queen Elizabeth II was always welcomed with open arms and warm hearts by the public.

And so, what better way to celebrate her amazing life than to ensure a permanent commemoration to her and her legacy, to remember her in a lasting way that will stand to remind people of the enormous sense of dedication to duty that she represented, a way to complement all of her individual experiences, memories and tributes in a way that will bring people together, a way for us all to recognise that we share in that same sense of duty, that same sense of something bigger than ourselves, that same sense of honesty and service that she embodied. Ultimately, commemorations exist to celebrate the lives of prominent individuals who achieved so much and made many transformative differences to people’s lives. The testimony of so many individuals and groups is perfect evidence of the effect the Queen had on so many people. It would be a chance for all of us to give something back to someone who dedicated her life to representing and serving us, both here and abroad, for so many years.

Commemorations of monarchs have historically taken place in a wide variety of forms throughout the centuries. Any number of paintings, tapestries, embroideries, statues, carvings and buildings have all been created, dedicated or renamed to the lives of our various monarchs. And while times may change and the exact form of commemoration has evolved to reflect the modern age, it’s that same spirit of wanting to recognise the good that’s been done that connects with that through line with the past. Because of course the passing of Her late Majesty was a tragic time. The funeral led to outpourings of grief, which proved just how much she touched people’s lives. But of course, after the sadness we can now look ahead to a positive and, hopefully, a celebratory moment to look at Queen Elizabeth II’s life and memory.

There’s a range of options that could be explored, whether it’s a statue, as was commissioned to commemorate the Queen Mother. That bronze statue by Philip Jackson was funded by a £5 coin produced by the Royal Mint. Although this was an expensive undertaking, many bronze statues have a starting price of £1,500, so financial obstacles need not be a barrier. But to have a similar statue commissioned for the Queen could be classed as part of the influential women series, which involves statues of influential women being erected across Wales. While this series does focus mainly on influential Welsh women, the Queen was influential in her own right in Wales, becoming Queen at such a young age, especially during such a male-dominated time.

A garden of reflection or a memorial garden is a good way of honouring influential people in a community. In my opinion, a memorial garden would be an excellent fit for the Queen as she was someone who was an influential person in so many communities. It particularly ties into the Queen’s Green Canopy project, which was launched for the Jubilee. That would enable the Queen to be remembered along with local communities and make a contribution towards tackling climate change. Making this either a Senedd or local community-run project would help local authority areas who are looking to sell land due to the increasing costs of maintaining it, as well as enabling local communities to tailor the project to suit their needs.

Public commemoration is not just the physical structure itself. Of course, statues, gardens and named buildings are an important form of tribute, but it’s also the thought behind the commemorations that gives them that greater meaning. Because ultimately, they physically embody the feelings of warmth, affection and love that so many of us had for such an inspiring figure.

So, to conclude, as our sovereign who did so much in service to this country, some form of permanent commemoration would seem to be an entirely fitting way to celebrate the life and times of Queen Elizabeth II. Circling back to my earlier remarks, whether unionist, nationalist, monarchist, republican, Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat or Plaid Cymru, I hope we can all recognise the selfless service that she embodied. Because day-to-day political divides are ultimately for us to play out in the arena of public debate. We challenge each other in policy areas on health, education, the economy and, of course, the constitution. However, with the passing of Queen Elizabeth, I hope all Members step back from seeing her as a constitutional monarch with a role the subject of political and constitutional debate and instead see her as an individual who made a historic contribution to our national life, and an individual worthy of a permanent public commemoration here in Wales.

Firstly, diolch to Tom Giffard for bringing this debate to the floor of the Senedd. Her late Majesty’s life and reign was devoted to the people of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. She forged a bond with our nation unmatched. She stood strong and steadfast, upholding and promoting all that is great about our country for 70 years. She was always there, a constant and consistent guiding light through good times and bad.

After her death there was a profound sense of loss and people wanted a way to commemorate her and her life of service to our nation. There is an opportunity here to honour Elizabeth II, who remained faithful to her promise until her death, and it’s the very least we owe her as a nation. The majority of people, I’m sure, would support such a consideration. I know that many of my constituents and myself would love to have a permanent place or monument to mark the life of Her late Majesty and be reminded of her. I fully support my colleague Tom Giffard today, and I hope that the idea behind this short debate comes to fruition.

I thank Tom for tabling this debate and for graciously allowing me a minute of his time. Growing up in Kashmir, some of my fondest childhood memories are about Her late Majesty. Two of my father’s most prized possessions were a special coronation commemorative Thermos flask and a wireless set. At the time of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation, owning a radio in Kashmir was illegal. But my father kept one in secret, and we were able to listen to the ceremonies taking place in the United Kingdom, drinking tea from his prized Thermos, itself a rarity in Kashmir. That Thermos, with its portrait of the Queen, stayed with us for many years. In a way, you could say I grew up with the Queen, as she was always with our family. With her passing, we have to find a way of permanently commemorating the late Queen and memorialising the huge comfort she granted to millions of people across the globe. Diolch yn fawr.

I’d like to thank my colleague Tom Giffard for tabling this very important short debate this afternoon. Our late Queen was without doubt a role model and an inspiration to millions of people here in the UK and across the globe. We all saw how hard she worked day in, day out, and her love for her country and its people was unwavering. Her Majesty’s contribution to the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth will without a doubt provide a lasting legacy.

The Queen was a constant presence in many of our lives, reigning over us for more than 70 years, and our late Queen’s lifetime of dedication and devoted service deserves to be recognised permanently. I know many Members across the benches, from here, from all other sides—some may be present, some may not right now—did take great pleasure in meeting, greeting and spending time with Her Majesty when she did visit the Welsh Parliament. And I know, having said that, she certainly created history in every sense of the word. And I really do hope that we are all able to see a permanent commemoration of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II right here in Wales in the very near future to mark her contribution, commitment and love for the people of Wales.

I want to thank my good friend and colleague Tom Giffard for bringing forward this important debate today. Her late Majesty the Queen was a remarkable individual, an exceptional individual, and right across the United Kingdom the way we mark exceptional people is by giving them a long-lasting memorial. I think it is right and proper that we give Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II a long-lasting memorial for future generations of this country to look up at her and the remarkable service she gave to our country, and not just the country here, but the Commonwealth and the wider globe. I have a question directly to the Minister: what conversations have you had with the royal household about getting a long-lasting memorial here in Wales? I’d like to know whether that will be partly funded by the royal household as well, because I think that would go a long way with helping us get this over the line. Thank you very much.

I call the Deputy Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism to reply to the debate. Dawn Bowden.

Diolch, Dirprwy Llywydd. When the First Minister offered the Senedd’s condolences on the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in September of last year, he reflected on her lifetime of service, duty, and self-sacrifice, and her personal commitment to Wales and its democratic institutions. I’m sure that everyone in this Chamber recognises those values, and how they endeared her to so many people in Wales. So, could I welcome today’s short debate from Tom Giffard, which has provided us all with an opportunity to reflect once again on the late Queen’s life and service? And to think about public commemoration, which of course is central to the way in which we represent and recognise our history, promote our values, and celebrate our communities.

I’m of course aware that there are discussions about possible commemorations to the late Queen in London and elsewhere in the UK, and we’ll pay close attention to those ongoing debates. I’ve also listened carefully to this afternoon’s debate to get a sense of how this Senedd might wish to approach the issue, although clearly, we’ve not heard from all sides on this debate, given the attendance here this evening. However, there are local initiatives under consideration in parts of Wales, as well as elsewhere in the UK, as I've mentioned, to mark the reign and the service of the late Queen Elizabeth II.

Our commemoration, of course, can take many forms and it need not be, say, a traditional statue in the city centre, which is the point that Tom was making. In Northumberland, for instance, after public consultation, it was decided to establish woodland walks and to make park improvements in memory of the late Queen. But in terms of any national commemoration in Wales, it would be important to proceed on the basis of consensus as far as possible, because commemoration must always strive to be dignified rather than divisive. A proper and fitting commemoration should blend those very significant values represented by the late Queen with the values of today’s Wales, as a forward-looking, inclusive nation, in a way that is dignified and appropriate.

As Members will be aware, the Welsh Government has recently consulted on public commemoration in Wales, which is guidance intended to help public bodies reach well-informed decisions about public commemorations, and it will help those bodies play their part in making Wales an anti-racist nation and celebrate individuals from all parts of our society who’ve made an outstanding contribution to Welsh life. It’ll be published in the coming months. This guidance sets out that inclusive decision making is essential for any public commemoration. To quote the guidance,

Thank you all. That brings today's proceedings to a close.