675 contributions on record. Newest first, by sitting day. Page 8 of 19. Counted by Siambr
Underpinning all of this is our determination to deliver through better Government. Better Government means focusing on what matters most, working across traditional boundaries and ensuring that our efforts make a real difference. We're also committed to being open and transparent about our progress. We will strengthen our use of evidence and data, learning always from what works. Dirprwy Lywydd, after years of missed opportunities and stagnation, we are getting Wales moving.
Drwy ganolbwyntio ar yr hyn sydd bwysicaf i bobl Cymru, gweithio efo'n gilydd a chymryd agwedd hirdymor, mi allwn ni adeiladu cenedl fwy hyderus sy'n barod i wireddu ei photensial enfawr a rhoi gobaith i bobl ar gyfer y dyfodol.
By focusing on what matters most to the people of Wales, working together and taking a long-term approach, we can build a more confident nation that is ready to fulfil its wealth of untapped potential and give people hope for the future.
Diolch yn fawr iawn am y sylwadau.
Thank you for those comments.
I'm grateful to the leader of Reform for agreeing that we are getting our priorities right in this programme for government and pledging to work in a co-operative way to help us deliver. That's exactly how I think we should operate here.
The Member is quite right that we need a Government that is willing and wants to be held to account. Scrutiny is important. That is why we have already published the first iteration of our digital dashboard. It will develop, it will grow, enabling you, and the Welsh public, to see how we are performing against a range of targets. Yes, and of course we have elements of targets throughout our programme for government.
There are some things that we have done already. We don't need a target to say that we will deliver that £1 billion that shows Welsh agriculture that this is a Government that believes in them and wants to support them. These are actions already taken. We don't need to set a target for how much funding we think needs to go into the health service. We've already taken those actions.
But the Member is quite right, so let's have a look at a number of the really key targets. We couldn't be clearer about what the childcare offer means. We have already been able to get to a point where the outcome at the end of this financial year is the roll-out of 12.5 hours of funded childcare for every two-year-old in every part of Wales. That's something the previous administration singularly failed to do. They got up to three. We're getting up to 22.
On education, interestingly, the work that we need to do—you have a background in education—is find a baseline from which we then are able to build. There will be targets around elements such as the Programme for International Student Assessment, which is only one measure, but we absolutely are putting those baselines in place so that we can build exactly that framework around which schools and parents and pupils know what they're aiming for.
There's a question about productivity. What are our targets on productivity? The Cabinet Minister for enterprise has literally published the first proper target for economic growth in Wales for a quarter of a century. It’s pretty ambitious, but I know that we have got the means to get there. It is, as it happens, not within the life of this Senedd, because we have to think long term about the economy. This is halving the productivity gap with the rest of the UK within 10 years. Now, that is a significant target, and throughout the term of this Senedd and beyond, as a nation, we need to be working towards those kinds of ambitious targets.
So, the targets are there. The differences that the Member emphasised are ones that are clear for everybody to see: that Reform do not believe in Wales as a nation, that we are a nation that builds our own future. That is my belief. I believed in devolution in 1997, when we had the chance to vote. I believed in strengthening it when we had the referendum in 2011. I believe we need to strengthen it further. What we have from the leader of Reform is a blanket ‘no’: ‘We do not want Wales to have the tools. We do not want Wales to be able to succeed by having the powers or the finances in order to build a better future for Wales.’ That is fine, that is a fundamental difference between us. I'll be the one here standing up for Wales. She can do as she pleases.
I thank the Labour leader for beginning his contribution in a positive way. Governing is hard, as he knows. There has never been a majority in the history of devolution, and we recognise that we need to work across this Chamber in many ways, including through the development of legislation, which he suggested he wants to work with us on.
Unpicking a bit more some of the points that were raised there—on the NHS, it was and is priority No. 1. This is a Government that has already made choices, including on a budget deal with the last Labour Government, to ensure that we have the resources to make sure that we build a more sustainable future for the NHS. We begin now from the point of the legacy that we inherited from the last Labour Government. Data is just coming through now from the time of the election and the weeks following that, and, yes, it confirms how dire the situation is that we are trying to resolve. But through the measures outlined in this programme for government, building towards the introduction of up to 10 hubs, a change in emphasis in terms of the work patterns of doctors—this is clinically led, remember, to free up time, to get more people through the system—the injection of £150 million, some of it clinical, some of it on the actual buildings themselves, which will be the home of a sustainable NHS for the future, we stand firm by the pledges that we have made and in making this a priority.
On this element of somehow north Wales not being mentioned in this programme for government, I come from even further north than he does, and this is a Government—and I have made it clear—that isn't about the tokenism of having a north Wales Minister; every single Minister in this Government is a north Wales Minister and a south Wales Minister and a west Wales Minister, because we believe in bringing Wales together and building a brighter future for people, wherever they are. And to attack the first north Wales First Minister for somehow not caring about the north isn't something that people are going to even believe makes sense, frankly.
I come back to additional learning needs and remind the Member again that he had £9 million that Labour were going to put into something that we consider to be very important; we're glad that he does too. We had £100 million on the table; we have £40 million that we can spend this year. That is what this party put on the table, seriously, in a way that isn't just money but is money that can be spent—money that can be spent to make a real difference to councils, to schools, to parents, to children. The offer is still very much available. This has to be about more than politics.
And I will end, if I may, on this attack, which I've heard mentioned and read about it in the paper—and I was thinking, 'Surely, he's not going to make this accusation here in the Senedd Chamber'—that the childcare offer is something that he objects to in its universality. So, suddenly, the Labour Party objects to the universality that provides bus passes for pensioners, so we can assume that Labour wants to take away bus passes for pensioners, we can assume that they're against the universality of free prescriptions. Can we start thinking that also they want the universality of the NHS, even, to be taken away from people? Is he happy to create a two-tier system where rich people are to be supported to go off into private healthcare, or does he, like me, believe that the more we can build together—yes, including that principle of universality—binds us together as a nation and gives us solutions for the long term that address the needs of people in all parts of Wales from all backgrounds?
We have here a programme for government that is about transforming Wales, and I guess the point to make on governing being difficult is that government is difficult, especially when you inherit a broad range of issues that don't put us off, that don't make us diminish our ambitions, but make us work harder to deliver them for the people of Wales.
Diolch yn fawr iawn. Again, the common ground that we have, and I also take a real positive from the fact that we have three party leaders now who say that they want to work positively and constructively. It won't be on everything—there are differences between us, we know that—but there's that positive sense here that there are elements of the work that we do in this place, from legislation to budgets and all sorts of other things, where we need to work together.
I must say that the accusation that somehow this is a rehash of our manifesto, that you have a manifesto, you stand in an election, you get elected, you have a mandate, and somehow then you tear up the manifesto and start again—. That's not how it works. That's not how it works. If this feels like our manifesto, as in if this feels like that it reflects what we promised the people of Wales that we would do, with the priorities on health and education and job creation and childcare and child poverty and standing up for Wales, it's doing its job, so thank you very much for confirming that, Darren.
You also criticise—. I get it; scrutiny includes criticism. I honestly say, on health, we face an uphill struggle because we inherit some serious issues, not all of which are the fault of the last Government, but that is what we inherited.
On PISA, don't criticise us on PISA scores. Those PISA tests were taken in 2025, before we came into power. But it does, of course, reflect again the scale of the challenge that we face.
The Member focuses, in particular, on health, and, yes, it is something that is important to me, but it's important to all of us here, I think, getting the NHS right. The Member's party has often made the case that we should declare a crisis. I do certainly believe that there's a crisis in many parts of the NHS. I'm not convinced that a declaration of crisis in that kind of way is particularly useful. There are suggestions there that we should have more about beds here. I have made the case for making sure that we maximise the capacity of our health system in the past, but it's not quite that simple either. Our surgical hubs—most of the people that will go through surgical hubs will be going home the same day. Also, in my local district general hospital, it's not a lack of beds; it's the lack of throughput and the number of people. It's the same wherever we are. The numbers of people who are medically fit for discharge and who are still in our hospitals, those are the issues. Should we have an ambition to absolutely grow where we can, including bed capacity, with the staff to go with them? Yes, absolutely. But we're also working within constraints. Remember that the plans that we have put in place and that are reflected in this document are clinically led, and they're not telling us what we need is more beds—they're saying we need a number of steps to be taken. But I'm not dismissing the point that the Member is making.
On the shift of resource towards primary—and I include preventative, I guess, in that, though preventative is a little bit different too—the Member's right that you have to be careful. We're not suggesting going in one leap. We're talking about 0.5 percentage point per year of an increase. But it happens in a slow and sustainable way because you don't want a detrimental impact on secondary care, which, in many ways, is the expensive end of the health service. And getting those waiting lists down, the higher waiting times in particular, takes then the pressure, hopefully, off secondary care, which helps then that transition to primary care.
The leader of the Conservative group says that there's a lot of ambition in this document that we share. That's good. So, let's work on those areas. The same invitation goes to Members in other parties. This is about ambition, as it says, but, at the end of the day, we're going to be measured on whether we are able to realise, if not 100 per cent, the thrust of what we say we're going to try to achieve on behalf of the people of Wales here.
Diolch yn fawr iawn am y sylwadau ac am y cwestiwn yna. Ydy, mae hwn yn un o'n prif flaenoriaethau ni. Dydy safonau ein hysgolion ni ddim lle, dwi'n meddwl, rydyn ni i gyd yn fan hyn yn cytuno y dylen nhw fod. Mae'r fframwaith llythrennedd a rhifedd, dwi'n meddwl, yn mynd i droi allan i fod yn rhywbeth gwerthfawr iawn o ran cymryd golwg o'r newydd ar sut rydyn ni'n mynd ati i gryfhau'r sgiliau sylfaenol yna. Ond mae'r Aelod, Ddirprwy Lywydd, yn cyfeirio at fwy na dim ond beth sy'n cael ei ddysgu yn y gwersi; mae o'n ymwneud â'r gefnogaeth sydd yn cael ei rhoi i staff. Rydyn ni'n gwybod bod materion fel canrannau mynychu ysgolion ac ymddygiad mewn ysgolion i gyd yn rhan o'r ffactorau sydd yn creu pwysau ar athrawon. Mae'r materion yna wedi'u clymu'n agos iawn â'i gilydd, ac yn aml iawn wedi clymu i mewn i dlodi a chefndiroedd difreintiedig ac ati. Ond beth rydyn ni'n bwriadu ei wneud ydy dod â'r gwahanol asiantaethau at ei gilydd, yn ysgolion, yn iechyd a gofal, yn wasanaethau ieuenctid ac ati, mewn fframwaith sydd wedi clymu at ei gilydd yn agos er mwyn mynd i'r afael â'r problemau yma mewn ffordd gyflawn, sy'n rhywbeth, o bosib, sydd wedi bod ar goll yn y gorffennol.
Thank you very much for those comments and for that question. Yes, this is one of our key priorities. Standards in our schools aren't where, I think, all of us in this place can agree that they should be. The new literacy and numeracy framework, I think, will turn out to be something very valuable in taking a new view as to how we strengthen those fundamental skills. But the Member, Dirprwy Lywydd, refers to more than just what is taught in the classroom; it is about the support provided to staff too. We know that issues such as school attendance percentages and behaviour in schools are all part of the factors that create pressures on teaching staff. Those issues are very interconnected, and are often tied in to poverty and disadvantaged backgrounds and so on. But what we intend to do is to bring different agencies together—the schools, health and care services, youth services and so on—in a framework that's properly integrated in order to tackle these problems in a holistic manner, which is something that has, perhaps, been missing in the past.
Well, nothing's changed. I believe in Wales being able to pursue its future as a normal country. I believe in independence for Wales. I think everybody knows that. Our manifesto stated clearly that we believe that the shape of our constitutional future should be in the hands of the people of Wales. I mean, I think that's a fundamental right, and that is precisely what we're saying, in that we should be the ones, as a Senedd, calling it, as the people of Wales, asking for it, who are able to set the timetable for this. Yes, I did say that the last election wasn't about independence, and I think I have had lots of opportunities to explain what I meant by that.
There's no referendum being pushed for by this Government now, but we absolutely believe that the people of Wales should be allowed to decide. I will use the influence that I have, hopefully, as Wales's leader, to try to persuade people to think about the challenges, the opportunities and what we might be able to do in future that we aren't able to do now. These paths are challenging and full of opportunity at the same time. The Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales isn't an independence commission. It is about, 'How do we arm ourselves to make us, as a nation, fit for the future?'
Now, Reform, we know—we've heard it again today from your leader, and again, you're being honest about this—don't believe in giving us any more powers. You think we should settle as we are. You think that we should, at best, put what we have in aspic and just hope that somehow, through our actions as Governments, that we can make things better. I just don't see it in that way. I think, where there are things that all the evidence points to it making sense for us to have control over—policing, where we pay for most of it directly in Wales now, but have no accountability for it; justice, so that we can serve people better in constituencies all across Wales; so that we can make decisions about our natural resources—I just think that's common sense.
What the commission does is provide us a platform through which you can say you don't want it to happen, and I can say, and others, 'Do you know what? We should look at this and see how we can deliver this.'
To be open here, I was listening to the Trefnydd giving what the Member called a 'contemptuous' answer. What the Trefnydd said earlier was that she believed there was poverty in all parts of Wales that needed addressing. And I absolutely get—I absolutely get—the fact that the Member is standing up for the people of his constituency, as I would expect him to, but we have to, as a Government, recognise that we have urban poverty that we desperately need to get to grips with and we have rural poverty that we desperately need to get to grips with. In some instances, they're the same answers; in some instances, they're different answers. So, there's no contempt whatsoever there.
There's a specific question on Flying Start, and I have heard Labour Members raise questions about the future of Flying Start. We're somehow being accused of wanting to take money away from fighting child poverty when this is the party that has been criticised by his too often for wanting to spend too much on tackling child poverty through the childcare offer. This phase of the childcare offer is literally being delivered through Flying Start. This is building on what Flying Start has done. More families living in poverty, incidentally, are not in Flying Start areas than the ones that are in Flying Start areas. Both are really, really important. We want to help them all. I hope that's clear enough.
I'm grateful for the question and the sentiment, and I couldn't agree more. It was very humbling, back in May, to see different communities in their geographical location, in their diversity, turning to Plaid Cymru and putting their trust in us, and we have to repay that trust. That's what it's all about. On social justice, I say, 'Hear, hear.' I hope that speaking loud and clear from this programme for government is the sense that this is about equity, it is about fairness, it is about equal opportunity, it is about social justice. We don't want the national development agency to be there to make Wales rich for its own sake. We want it there to make us prosper in every sense, where everybody feels a part of a flourishing nation that I know we can be. The measures on education are very much geared to making sure that education opportunities are there for everybody.
The attack on universality that we had earlier today, our belief in universality and making sure that we bring all parents in to the support that can be given through childcare, whilst, at the same time, emphasising the need to tackle child poverty through the Cynnal payment, I think all of that reflects something that I'm very proud to stand by. We will be measured by the way that we adhere throughout to those values of ours and, yes, building a united, peaceful Wales that rejects division is something that means an awful lot to, I know, the benches that I sit on, but hopefully all of us here too.
I've heard a lot of this plan-for-a-plan business. Government works out solutions to the problems we face as a nation. That's what Government does. We have a manifesto that sets out things we have decided, and it's clear what we need to do because the evidence is there. There are things that we have done already. The rolling out of childcare has begun. It's not something that's going to happen in the future, it is happening already. The introduction of free school meals has already begun, and there has always been a phased approach to that. Our measures on health aren't being planned, they are being implemented right now. But at the same time, you use the tools at your disposal: you use the civil service, you use civic society in Wales. We come here in committees in the Senedd and recommendations will be made by the committees that you sit on for Government to do things that we haven't thought of doing yet. That is how it works. We always seek solutions to the problems that Wales has. If you thought fighting an election, 'There we are, we've done the thinking; let's just settle down and do it', that's not how it works.
On Cynnal, it's a really good example. We know what we're trying to do with Cynnal. There are practical difficulties with implementing it because we don't have the powers. Again, a good example of why we need the tools at our disposal. But we think we've found a way of doing it: we're going to pilot it. The working group has already met four times. It's not something that we're planning how we're going to address this. It is happening, guided by my Deputy First Minister. I'm not going to apologise for thinking out carefully how we make decisions that will improve the lives of people in Wales.
Diolch yn fawr. I remind the Member that she voted against a supplementary budget that was proposing to roll out matters like childcare that were really important to her.
On child poverty targets, this has been a major issue in that we had 27 years of Labour-led Governments that did have targets initially, then they withdrew them. We will bring targets. We are developing a strategy. One of the reasons that we have called for a strategy is that the sector—people working in this area—wants targets. I'd rather work out what targets are meaningful rather than pluck one from the air. The work is being done on that now. In early summer 2027, we will have that strategy, which must include targets. We need to know what we're aiming for.
On independence, I compare the situation in Wales to Ireland, where the Good Friday agreement specifically says that a referendum will be called—. I'm not interfering with what happens in Ireland; they can do what they want to do. But it specifically says when public opinion is clear that there is support for it, then you ask the question. In fact, the UK Prime Minister suggested in the House of Commons last week that the same should apply to Scotland too. It's opinion polling. It's sensing the view of the population. I want to influence people in a positive way, and you too, to engage positively with the possibilities that come from pursuing a particular kind of constitutional change.
But remember, we work with what we have now. We have real ambition for our nation. I want us to embrace all the possibilities of being a normal nation, but we're a Government that works right now with the powers that we have now, looking at the powers that we could have next, and next and next, because it's all about building a nation, which is something that all of us should be interested in.
Mae'n gwestiwn pwysig ac yn gyfle i egluro beth ydy'r meddwl tu ôl i hyn. Mae gennym ni, am y tro cyntaf erioed, Weinidog sydd yn gyfrifol am iechyd ataliol. Mae hynny ynddo'i hun yn gam pwysig ymlaen, achos beth sydd gennym ni rŵan ydy pencampwr dros weithredu yn ataliol sydd wedi cael ei gorchymyn gen i i fynd allan a dwyn pwysau ar bob un o'r Gweinidogion i weithio mewn ffordd ataliol, mewn ffordd drawslywodraethol go iawn o weithio. Dwi'n meddwl bod hynny ynddo'i hun yn ddechrau ar rywbeth cyffrous. Dwi wedi ei alw yn chwyldro ataliol.
Mae sut i gyllidebu ar gyfer hynny yn adlewyrchu'r ffaith ei fod o'n drawslywodraethol. Rydyn ni wedi sôn am sut rydyn ni'n gallu cloriannu'r holl arian ataliol at ei gilydd, ond y gwir amdani ydy bod elfennau o gyllidebau pawb yn rhan o hyn. Ac ydy, mae'r amlen yn dynn iawn yn ariannol, ond wrth wneud penderfyniadau lle mae yna ddau ddewis, rydyn ni'n dewis yr un sydd yn ataliol. Mae rhywun wedyn yn gallu symud ymlaen mewn ffordd bositif, dwi'n credu, o sicrhau bod tai yn cael eu gwneud yn fwy iach, bod dewisiadau bwyd yn fwy iach drwy'r strategaeth fwyd, camau o fewn y gwasanaeth iechyd ei hun, ac yn y blaen.
Un pwynt olaf y buaswn i'n ei wneud ydy bod yna farn yn aml iawn bod mesurau ataliol, fel y dywedodd yr Aelod, yn cymryd blynyddoedd weithiau i fwydo drwy'r system. Dydy hynny ddim bob amser yn wir. Mae'n bosib gwneud newidiadau o fewn cyfnod cymharol fyr mewn deiet, sydd i rai pobl yn gallu dad-wneud diabetes math 2, ac yn y blaen. Felly, mae'r Llywodraeth yn edrych ar beth sydd yn gallu cael impact buan, achos mae o'n bosib, tra hefyd wrth gwrs yn gorfod edrych yn yr hirdymor. Ond dwi'n meddwl bod yna newid agwedd sylfaenol yn fan hyn yn cael ei adlewyrchu drwy’r rhaglen yma.
It's an important question, and an opportunity to explain what the thinking is behind this. We have, for the first time ever, a Minister responsible for preventative health. That in itself is an important step forward, because what we have now is a champion for preventative action who has been tasked by me to work across Government to focus on that preventative approach. That's a cross-governmental way of working, and I think that's the beginning of something very exciting. I've called it a preventative revolution.
How to fund that and budget for it reflects that it's a cross-governmental responsibility. We've talked about how we've been able to weigh up and balance that preventative spend, but the truth is that elements of everybody's budgets will be part of this. And yes, the envelope is very tight in financial terms, but in making decisions where there are two choices, we choose that preventative approach. We can then make progress in a positive manner, I believe, in terms of ensuring that housing is made healthier, that food choices are healthier through the food strategy, steps within the health service itself, and so on.
One final point that I would make is that there is a view very often that preventative measures, as the Member said, take years sometimes to feed through the system. That isn't always the case. It is possible to make changes within a relatively short period of time in terms of diet, which, for some people, can reverse type 2 diabetes, for example. So, the Government is looking at what can have that swifter impact, because it is possible, whilst also having to look at the longer term picture as well. But I think that there’s a fundamental change of approach here reflected throughout the programme for government.
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