Questions now from the party leaders. The leader of the UKIP group, Neil Hamilton.

Diolch, Lywydd. The Government will be represented at the Supreme Court hearing next week on the case involving article 50, and it’s perfectly reasonable that the Welsh Government’s views should be presented to the court. But what instructions will be given to counsel for the Welsh Government? Will he, or she, be supporting the Government of the United Kingdom, or will he or she be supporting the claimant against the Government of the United Kingdom—i.e. will he be helping to facilitate the wishes of the British people, as expressed in the referendum on 23 June, or the opposite?

Neither. The Welsh Government will be representing itself, and the instructions to counsel will be given on the basis of representing the Welsh Government’s position. This is not to do with preventing Brexit; it is to do with making sure that constitutional law is observed.

There is an argument, of course, as to what the constitutional law requires in this particular incident. So, what I’m trying to elicit from the First Minister is on whose side he is going to be—on the view that is held by the United Kingdom Government or the view held by counsel for Mrs Miller, who is the applicant in this case. There are sound legal arguments for saying that an explicit vote in the House of Commons is not required before triggering article 50. In 2008 and in 2011, an Act of Parliament was passed to amend UK legislation to require explicitly a vote in Parliament if there were to be any specific changes to EU law in some areas like common defence policy, the appointment of a European prosecutor, whether Britain should join the euro, whether Britain should join the Schengen agreement, whether we should replace the voting by unanimity by qualified majority voting, and a whole range of incidents. In all those instances, there would be direct effects upon the British people as a consequence of the decision. That’s the essence of the High Court’s decision—that it’s because of those direct effects upon people that an explicit vote in Parliament is required. But as article 50 was not one of the many instances that were set down in an Act of Parliament, then there is certainly no basis for saying that, in this case, there is an implied requirement for the House of Commons or the House of Lords to support a vote in favour of article 50 before the Government is enabled to fulfil the wishes of the British people.

If the leader of UKIP is pitching to act as counsel in the Supreme Court, he’s doing a reasonable job for himself. He understands the constitutional issue that has to be resolved in court. We will all have our different positions. The question for us is: can the royal prerogative be used to start what would be an unstoppable process towards changing the constitution of Wales. There are serious legal arguments that need to be explored in the Supreme Court. He has recognised that, and I welcome that. Unfortunately, there are some in his party who see this as some kind of conspiracy to stop Brexit. That is not what this is about. This is about ensuring that if an important constitutional legal principle is examined and judgment given on that, and not just for Brexit, of course, this could be used in the future for other issues as well.

Indeed. So, what I’m trying to elicit from the First Minister, and which he still has not given an answer to, is: what will the counsel for the Welsh Government actually be saying in the course of these proceedings? Because the counsel for the Government said nothing in the High Court at all. Is it intended that counsel for the Welsh Government will say something in the Supreme Court hearing, and, if so, will he be arguing against the case of the United Kingdom Government that we should go ahead and trigger article 50 as soon as possible without complicating matters by having further votes in Parliament?

Well, he’s perfectly welcome to read the grounds, which are public, and he will see the case that we make. We represent ourselves. We are not there to back one side or the other but to put the case on behalf of the people of Wales in terms of what constitutional principles should be followed. It just so happens that Brexit is the issue, but it could be any other issue where this constitutional principle would need to be examined. So, it’s important that it’s examined now.

The leader of Plaid Cymru, Leanne Wood.

Diolch, Lywydd. First Minister, a ban on letting agents fees was announced in the recent autumn statement announcement, with England now joining Scotland. When it comes to Wales, your finance Secretary told the BBC that he wanted to wait and see how the ban in Scotland worked first. Do you know which year they banned letting agent fees in Scotland?

Yes. The position in Scotland is this: that the Rent (Scotland) Act 1984 makes the payment of any premium in respect of granting, renewal or continuance of a protected tenancy an offence. That definition has been in place since 30 November 2012. So, practically, since 2012, that has been in place. I can say, however, that we are looking again at this issue. Our fear was that if fees were abolished, then that would be loaded onto rents. The evidence from Scotland is interesting in that regard. I know this is an issue that my colleague, Jenny Rathbone, has been particularly concerned about, given the effect on her constituency.

I’m glad you raised that point about Scotland, because the banning of letting fees there has shown, according to the ONS, that rents in Scotland and Wales rose at a substantially lower rate than in England over the past six years, with rents in Scotland actually falling over the past year. So, it shows that this ban on letting fees doesn’t actually increase rents. Now, you’re right—Scotland banned these fees in 2012. So, how much longer do tenants in Wales have to wait, then? I would have thought that four years was long enough. The fact is that you've been even slower on this vitally important social justice question than even the Tories in Westminster.

Now, First Minister, home ownership is becoming a crucial issue for this generation of young people; it's becoming almost impossible to get on the property ladder. Getting their rent paid is now the top priority, and, in the rented sector, moving home can bring about a set of unjustified fees, with Shelter Cymru’s mystery-shopping exercise a few years ago suggesting that it can cost up to £1,000 extra. Unless action is taken, it will only be Wales that will have these letting fees. I would welcome a firm commitment from you this afternoon, First Minister, explaining to us how you are going to ban these letting agent fees. Will you give us that commitment today?

I can say this is something that is actively under consideration. I understand the point that she makes; it would look strange for Wales to have letting agent fees while England and Scotland didn't. There is some evidence now from Scotland that the effect in terms of rental increases was not as great as was feared, and that is something that will play in very strongly to the action we will take over the next few months.

First Minister, last year, Plaid Cymru tabled amendments to the Renting Homes (Wales) Bill, but you declined at that point to take up the opportunity to ban excessive letting fees, apparently against the wishes of your own backbenchers. And banning excessive letting agency fees is not the only issue on which your backbenchers have wanted to vote with Plaid Cymru amendments to improve legislation; we wanted to ban zero-hours contracts in social care. But there always seems to be an excuse, First Minister: either you don't have the power, or the amendment wasn't drafted correctly, or, my favourite, ‘We haven't consulted on the issue’, even after 17 years of being in power. Why is it, First Minister, that when Plaid Cymru tries to implement policies that help those on the lowest incomes to get out of poverty, your Government votes against us?

Well, I do remember that her party was in Government for four years, which is often conveniently forgotten. And there will be issues—the issue of zero-hours contracts attached to the social services Bill, if I remember rightly, was an issue. The fear was the entire Bill would be referred to the Supreme Court. It’s not an issue of disagreement on principle, not in the slightest—far from it; we’re at the same place when it comes to zero-hours contracts. In the same way, we will revisit the issue of letting agents fees in the light of the evidence that is there from Scotland, through Shelter, and it is right to say that it would look unusual for Wales to have letting agents fees with England and Scotland not. The concern that we have, that this would simply be added to rents, appears from the evidence in Scotland now to be less of a concern than before.

The leader of the Welsh Conservatives, Andrew R.T. Davies.

Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. First Minister, if I could return to the first question today, on sepsis, I'd like to commend my colleague, Angela Burns, who now chairs the all-party group on this particular issue—after going through some pretty horrendous experiences herself she is able to bring those personal experiences to the table. This is an issue that, obviously, through recent media coverage, really has come to the forefront of people's thinking, but has been quietly lurking in the background in health professionals’ minds for quite some time. And, in fairness to the Welsh Government, they've brought forward a strategy to try and tackle some of the areas that people do face when they present and want to be assessed in hospital. But it is a fact that only one in 10 people is receiving the right treatment and the right assessments in hospitals. What type of target can we aim for this time next year? Because I hear the warm words and, rightly, the words that people want to hear, but they actually want hear progress on this particular issue. So, what progress can we specifically hold you to on screening and treatment in 12 months’ time, First Minister?

Well, it’s part of the 1000 Lives programme that we have to make sure that more people are given the chance to survive and given the chance to have the right level of treatment for the illness itself. He asks are there any particular figures in terms of a target. The answer to that is ‘no’; there's no particular figure, but what I can say is we want to see more people diagnosed early to give them the opportunity of surviving. We have already in place, as I said, the early warning score system, the Sepsis Six analysis scheme as well. We believe that all these things, taken together, will increase awareness of sepsis, particularly awareness amongst medics, so that they are able to diagnose more quickly and, therefore, more people are diagnosed and therefore will survive.

Thank you for that, First Minister. I was specifically looking for a target from yourself, as the First Minister and the Government. I appreciate there might not be hard and fast figures there at the moment, but the figure I did put to you is that, at the moment, only one in 10 patients are actually receiving that screening and that support that most probably would help and actually save their lives. Now, that’s a figure none of us want to leave at. We want to push that on, and you have the ability as a Government to push on from that figure.

When you actually think that 15 times more people are killed by sepsis in Wales, or die from sepsis in Wales, than in road accidents—we’ve had a huge programme, a successful programme, of road traffic safety and road traffic information—this is an area that the Welsh Government need to be at the forefront of, and delivering tangible results within our health service. Pockets of good practice are just not good enough, as was identified in the recent report. So, I’ll use my second question of three, if I may, to try and push you to try and get a hard figure out of you of where we will be this time next year when it comes to hospital screening for sepsis and actually being able to deliver the treatments that are required.

Well, there is already a consistent approach through the national early warning score system. That is in place across all hospitals in Wales. It’s widely used by staff in community hospitals and in residential homes for the elderly and indeed in mental health services. I mentioned earlier that the ambulance service is developing systems for screening patients for sepsis prior to arrival. Velindre uses the system across all its clinical areas and out-patient chemotherapy units, ensuring that it meets the needs of cancer patients, and then of course I mentioned the Sepsis Six bundle. What does that mean in terms of numbers? Well, we work with the UK Sepsis Trust; there’s a very good working relationship. We want to see that figure of one out of 10 improve in the future so that more people have a chance of survival, and we’re confident that will happen.

I appreciate I don’t seem to be able to get a figure out of you today, First Minister. I have paid tribute to the actions the Government have taken so far, but it is quite clearly identified that there are only pockets of good practice, regrettably, in the Welsh NHS. I’ve given you the figure of one in 10 and I’ve given you the figure that 15 times more people die of sepsis than of road accidents, so I would hope that maybe the Cabinet Secretary could make a written statement to indicate where the Government wants to be in 12 months’ time, so that we can see how open his mind is to actually bringing forward real progress in this area.

But one area where real progress can be made is in the recruitment and retention of doctors and medical staff. I appreciate again this is a UK-wide issue, this is, and in certain disciplines it’s more pronounced in other parts of the United Kingdom than maybe here in Wales. But, regrettably, the Royal College of Surgeons have pointed out that 40 per cent of consultant posts are vacant here in Wales, and many of them do not actually attract—vacant positions I’m talking about, not actually staff positions—40 per cent of vacancies do not receive any reply to the adverts put out there. What progress will the Welsh Government be doing and undertaking over the next 12 months to actually attract and retain clinicians to our NHS so that, when it comes to sepsis and other conditions, we have the expertise at the coalface to actually deliver those diagnoses to improve treatments for patients entering the NHS here in Wales?

I’m not quite sure where he gets the 40 per cent figure from. The vacancy figure is around 4 per cent in the Welsh NHS. We continue to be proactive in our recruitment. We’ve been in London and Harrogate at events recently in order to present Wales as a good place to be a doctor. We’ve had, at the last count, 280 very hard and solid responses and enquiries to our campaign—it’s a very good campaign. We are confident that we will be able to attract the physicians at all levels, and surgeons at all levels, into the Welsh NHS to make sure that enough people get the service they require.