We now move to questions from party leaders, and first this week is the leader of the Welsh Conservatives, Andrew R.T. Davies.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. First Minister, very often at First Minister’s questions you talk at length about what the UK Government is doing. So, for this question, I’d like to focus on what you think would be the best outcome from Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. Do you think that the best interests of the United Kingdom would be served by having Jeremy Corbyn as the next prime minister?

Yes.

It’s nice to see that you’re going to play your part in the trilogy, then, of the demise of the Labour Party by having him as the Prime Minister, because the longest suicide note possible was written in 1983 for the Labour Party, and, by having a Prime Minister who delivers for Wales, it’s vital to have that person in No. 10. You also went to the conference—[Interruption.]

Can we hear the leader of the Conservatives’ questions, please, in silence, without any attempt by Ministers to help the First Minister?

He needs all the help he can get. [Laughter.] First Minister, you also went to the Labour Party conference in Liverpool and launched a strategy there—the Healthy Child Wales programme, something that we fully support on these benches, because, when you look at the indices around child health, they are pretty appalling, to say the least, here in Wales. And, actually, most major indices have not moved since 2007 here in Wales. Can you tell us how the Government will take this strategy forward and, importantly, what budget lines you have agreed—I appreciate there was a statement issued yesterday, but there wasn’t a lot in that statement, First Minister—what budget lines have been agreed to take this policy forward, and how many extra community nurses will be there by 2021, because we know the number of community nurses is declining in Wales?

This will be examined, of course, when the budget is produced, and, as part of the promises we made to the people of Wales back in May, we intend to continue the situation where health inequalities close. What we’ve seen, of course, with the bedroom tax and with cuts in welfare benefits is that inequality has risen in Wales and we will do what we can to combat that. I’m grateful to him for mentioning my own party’s conference. If he wishes, of course, to play a greater role in that, then he can apply to join, though I can’t guarantee his application will be accepted.

First Minister, the Labour Party are doing all the favours they can for the Conservatives and other parties at the moment—long, long may it continue. As I say, we are now into the trilogy stage, we are, because we had the sequel in 2015, we did.

But the other point that was raised last week, by my colleague, David Melding, on Government policy—because we didn’t get an answer to my second question from you, so clearly there’s no budget line identified yet, or the development of a community nurse strategy to increase numbers—was on housing. And, in the programme for government, you, to your credit, identified you wanted to bring 20,000 social housing units forward by 2021. But that didn’t have any answers to what the current housing crisis faces, of the new-starts in the housing market, where we saw a 7 per cent decline in new-starts in Wales last year. So, how is your Government going to deliver on its social housing targets, and, importantly, how is it going to generate more activity in the overall housing market so that, by 2021, we can be hitting the target of 12,000 units a year, rather than the 8,000 we’re hitting at the moment?

Well, he mentions the budgetary issues. Again, they will be part of the budget when it’s published for all Members to see. We have our target of 20,000. The Minister will be explaining to the Assembly how that target will be achieved. We have achieved those targets in the past. We stand on our record. He talks of a trilogy. The second part of the trilogy, of course, was the defeat and backward pedalling of the Conservative Party in the elections in May.

The leader of UKIP, Neil Hamilton.

Diolch yn fawr, Lywydd. In the Government’s document, ‘Taking Wales Forward’, the section on health says,

‘We are committed to helping improve health and well-being for all.’

But, as the First Minister will know, there are lots of parts of Wales where that remains just an aspiration. And, in Gwynedd in particular, in the area around Blaenau Ffestiniog, the record is exactly the opposite. In the seven well-being areas defined by Gwynedd Council, there is a community hub hospital in every one apart from Blaenau Ffestiniog. And, since 2013, we’ve seen the closure of the memorial hospital, a loss of hospital beds, the closure of the x-ray service, the closure of the minor injuries unit, the closure of teledermatology clinics and therapy services, two rural branch surgeries have closed, and the GP practice in Blaenau Ffestiniog was supposed to have four full-time doctors, but it’s only got one salaried doctor and a variety of locums. As far as Blaenau Ffestiniog is concerned, they haven’t got a national health service, but a notional health service. What is he going to do about it?

Well, first of all, we have been investing, as we will in Blaenau Ffestiniog, in brand-new health centres across the whole of Wales. Simply keeping old buildings going for the sake of it is not how we see the future of the health service. It’s hugely important that Blaenau and other communities have access to the most up-to-date, modern facilities possible, and there are examples of that around Wales, and that’s precisely what we want to offer the people of Blaenau.

Well, each of the other six well-being areas has got a hospital that is open for 24 hours a day. The health centre in Blaenau will be open for only 10 hours a day. That is unacceptable. The aspiration is to meet the needs of the local population and ensure that services are provided as close to patients’ homes as possible. To get to Ysbyty Gwynedd from Blaenau Ffestiniog is an 80-mile round trip, or journey, and, for a lot of elderly people, and people on low incomes, this means that the national health service is not actually free at the point of delivery to them because they have to pay to get there. Ministers, unfortunately, have declined to intervene in this case—both the current Cabinet Secretary and his predecessor, Mark Drakeford—because they say that the decision to close down local services was agreed locally, but that, of course, was Betsi Cadwaladr that agreed to do that locally. When local people were asked by means of a community referendum, nearly 100 per cent of people voted against those closures. So, I’m asking the First Minister now, will he encourage his colleague the Cabinet Secretary to personally intervene in this case?

He seems to be making a case for the establishment of a district general hospital in the area if he says that travel is a problem. Yes, it is. We know that travel in some parts of Wales means that people have to travel further than normal, but that’s because they get a better service than a district general hospital. What we have, of course, is Ysbyty Alltwen, which is about, I think, 7 miles away from Blaenau Ffestiniog, and indeed the promise of investment into new health facilities, so that people don’t have to go into hospital in the first place. For many, many years, we’ve had a health service in this country that was hospital focused. We intend to make sure that more and more people can stay at home, get the support that they need at home, without having to go into hospital.

The litany of closures that I’ve just read out shows that that’s merely an aspiration—what the First Minister has just said. People in Blaenau feel that they’re actually being discriminated against amongst all the well-being areas that are identified by Gwynedd county council. What is it that Tywyn has got, for example, that Blaenau Ffestiniog lacks in terms of the health needs of the people? I’m asking the First Minister just this simple question: will you encourage the Cabinet Secretary to meet a delegation from Blaenau Ffestiniog in order that we can argue the toss on the claims of this important area to better treatment as part of the Government’s overall objective stated in its high-flown document last week?

It’s absolutely essential that the area gets better treatment; that’s why we’re investing in health facilities. He needs to go and talk to people, for example, on Deeside, where a brand-new health facility was opened there, or people, indeed, in Port Talbot, in Baglan, with the Neath Port Talbot Hospital—the brand-new health centre there—or Builth Wells, with the brand-new health centre there. We are providing the facilities that people need for the future, and importantly the facilities that shape the future as far as the health service of the twenty-first century is concerned, ensuring that fewer and fewer people have to stay in hospital, rather than doing things in the same old way, where people stay in hospital when they don’t need to.

Leader of the opposition, Leanne Wood.

Diolch, Lywydd. First Minister, how many children are waiting for more than four months for a first appointment with child and adolescent mental health services?

With child and adolescent mental health service, we’ve invested heavily—£6.6 million into the service. Demand outstripped supply, that much is true, which is why, of course, we’ve matched that with the extra investment that has been put in. It means, of course, that the numbers waiting and the times that youngsters are waiting have gone down.

First Minister, I asked you for a figure, and the exact number that you were looking for is 1,174 children waiting for four months. And it’s not true to say that that figure has gone down, because that figure has almost trebled in the three years since 2013. We all know that investment in early years is crucial for positive outcomes in education and health, and in particular in preventing some of the problems that can arise later on in life. Developments in neuroscience are showing that the early teenage years can be just as crucial for a person’s development as the early years.

I visited my old school last Friday, and I was told that the rates of self-harm are going through the roof at Tonypandy Community College, and I don’t think for one minute that that is an isolated case. Depression, anxiety and self-harm have become too common amongst a generation that have many worries about things like zero-hours contracts, massive student debt and endless austerity. Those young people are not covered by the interventions that are available for children under seven years old. The things that can go wrong in the teenage years can cause problems for life, and I saw that only too well in my former role as a probation officer. First Minister, will you establish a programme for pre-teens and teenagers to go alongside your Healthy Child Wales programme, and would you be prepared to look at what role mindfulness could play in such a programme?

Well, first of all, mindfulness was mentioned in the Welsh Labour manifesto as something that could be looked at. When we talk about the health of a child up to seven years old, that must include all types of health, including mental health as well. That is something that will be taken into consideration when developing the programme.

The second point is this: she’s right, we do see instances where young people do find themselves under a great deal of stress. Cyber bullying is one area, particularly, that she and I didn’t have to cope with that is something that is a real issue, and the education programme in schools to deal with that is important. The fact there are counsellors in the secondary schools—that’s important in order to help young people and, of course, ultimately, making sure the resources are there for CAMHS. The resources have been put in and I fully expect the waiting times and the numbers to go down as those resources work through the system.

First Minister, your Government’s record on helping young people with poor mental health is appalling, and that’s without mentioning the children and young people who don’t even make it into the system. The mortality rate for teenagers between 15 and 19 years old is higher in Wales than it is in England, and there has been no reduction in deaths from intentional injury among that age group, between 10 and 18 years old, in three decades. A national case audit of children’s deaths has suggested that many young people who died from suicide had not had any contact at all with mental health services, and, for those who had, there were problems with services failing to follow up on patients who did not turn up for their first appointments. You once admitted, First Minister, that your Government took its eye off the ball when it came to education. Will you now accept that your Government has taken its eye off the ball on children and young people’s mental health? Will you now accept that this is a crisis and will you tell us what, after 17 years of leading the Government here in Wales, you intend to do about this?

I have to say to the leader of the opposition, I had experience, as did my constituents, of this when the town that I represent was branded as some kind of suicide capital, where we had predatory journalists arriving from London who were trying to question young people outside the local college and trying to suggest to them that it was better to be dead than to live in the area. Those are the exact words that were used. Those youngsters who took their lives, in the main, did not know each other, despite what the press suggested. To come to the point that she was making, many of them had no contact with mental health services. They were a surprise—what happened was a surprise to their families. They’d had no warning. In some ways, that’s the greatest tragedy of all, because people—[Interruption.] It’s an important point: this is the greatest tragedy of all, where you have young people who are not known to the system and have not identified themselves to the system.

She asked what’s being done. I’ve already mentioned the money that’s been put into CAMHS. It is true to say that demand for CAMHS was significant, and that’s why, of course, we’ve provided more resources for CAMHS in order to make sure that more young people are identified. On top of that, of course, we do have counselling services in the secondary schools in order that young people can go and talk to people early on. That takes us well beyond what used to be the case in Wales.