Questions now from the party leaders. Leader of the Welsh Conservatives, Andrew R.T. Davies.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. First Minister, as I’ve said to you many times in this Chamber, you quite rightly identified education as a priority for your stewardship as First Minister here in the National Assembly for Wales. Last week, in the education committee, evidence was given that showed that the number of teachers in our schools has declined by over 1,000 since 2010. If education is a priority for you, why have you allowed the number of teachers teaching in our schools from 2010 to 2015 to decline by over 1,000?

Bear in mind, of course, that teachers’ pay and conditions have not been devolved and won’t be devolved until next year, so his party bears a responsibility for the funding of that particular matter. There will be some schools, of course, where numbers have dropped and, as a result, teaching staff have dropped. But we look forward now, next year, to working with the teaching profession to develop a fully comprehensive terms and conditions package to make sure that teaching remains attractive.

It’s always someone else’s fault, First Minister, with you, isn’t it? In fairness, the pupil numbers in our schools have remained relatively static, yet we’ve seen in excess of 1,000 teachers disappear out of the classrooms, both in primary and secondary schools across Wales on your watch.

What also came to light in the committee last week was that the funding gap between what is funded in England has stretched from £31 per pupil in 2001 to £607 in 2015. So, not only are we getting fewer teachers in the classroom, but your Government is making less money available for those teachers to use to teach the pupils of Wales. What are you going to do about closing that gap when it comes to funding?

He is surely having a laugh. He is the representative of a party that wanted to cut education spending going into the last election. It wanted to cut education spending by 12 per cent and take money out of schools. If he had been in my job now, schools would’ve been starved of funding, we’d have had fewer teachers and fewer achievements in our schools. We have kept our promises on school funding; we’ve made sure that schools have been funded properly; we’ve seen an improvement in GCSE results; we’re seeing and improvement in A-level results; we saw the categorisation results from last week, where schools had improved; we’ve provided money to help those from deprived backgrounds; we’ve helped those schools, financially, that are not performing as they should, to start to improve. We have a good record on education and not the cuts that he would propose.

Well, obviously, you must’ve been living in a different universe, because we had no proposals for cuts in education at the last Assembly elections. Rather bizarrely, you must’ve been living in a different universe. What we’ve had since Christmas are the programme for international student assessment results; we’ve had the Estyn report that has clearly shown that, on your watch, education has either gone backwards or stood still. That’s a fact—that’s Estyn and that is the PISA results, First Minister. That is a fact, and the evidence given to the education committee last week clearly pointed to fewer teachers and less money available in schools here in Wales.

So, the issue you’ve got now, with the news, today, is that the introduction of the new curriculum is also hitting problems when it comes to leadership and strategic direction, as well as the pioneer schools not knowing exactly where they’re going with the introduction of the new curriculum. How can you give any certainty that you’re going to right the wrongs of your first term in office, so that pupils, teachers and parents can see genuine improvement in schools? Or are we actually going to be on the mystery tour that the Scottish education Minister, John Swinney, said that their system is going on at the moment? Are you prepared to allow Welsh schools to go on a mystery tour, First Minister?

I have no idea what he means by that. If anybody would like to explain all that, then there it is. I’m not letting him off the skewer on this one, okay? He has fought elections on the basis of a 12 per cent cut in education funding. That is a fact. That is a fact. He stood as a Conservative candidate in the election in 2011 when his leader went on live tv—live tv—and said that we need to cut education by 20 per cent. It’s there, there’s evidence; not the alternative facts that he wants to present. And what do we see? We see a school buildings programme—new schools opening all across Wales. Members will see where they are. If he had been in charge, nothing would’ve been built, because there wouldn’t be a school buildings programme because his party cut the school buildings programme in England. We wouldn’t have seen the improvement in schools in terms of categorisation; we wouldn’t have seen the pupil deprivation grant; we wouldn’t have seen the money that we have put into Schools Challenge Cymru; we wouldn’t have seen the improvements in GCSEs and we wouldn’t have seen the improvements in A-levels. No. It’s right to say that, under the Welsh Conservatives, Welsh education would be consigned to the dustbin.

Arweinydd grŵp UKIP, Neil Hamilton.

Diolch yn fawr, Lywydd. The First Minister will know that I’m a strong supporter of the Welsh Government’s policy of achieving 1 million Welsh speakers by 2050, and I’m a great admirer of the Minister for lifelong learning, who brings his legendary diplomatic and leadership skills to the achievement of that objective. In particular, I approve of the basic principle of tolerance and respect, both for English speakers and Welsh speakers, that he has brought to the development of this policy, which I think has made it marketable beyond areas where it might otherwise have been.

Does the First Minister think that the success of this policy of the Welsh Government is being put at risk by Plaid Cymru-controlled Carmarthenshire County Council, which is forcing a Welsh language school upon people in Llangennech near Llanelli, against the overwhelming wishes of the majority of parents in that village?

Well, these are matters for Carmarthenshire council. They must make an assessment in terms of what they see as the right solution for any particular area within their county boundary.

Well, the Welsh-medium education strategy says that Wales should be a country where people may choose to live their lives through the medium of either, or both, Welsh or English, and I think that’s a very reasonable objective. Here we’ve had a consultation process in Llangennech, 18 months after the decision was actually made, in which five people have opposed the proposal for every one in favour, and there have been 757—which is an enormous number for a small village—responses against this proposal by Carmarthenshire County Council. It’s not a consultation, it’s a ‘nonsultation’.

Does he agree with Michaela Beddows, who’s leading the people who are against this proposal, when she says that ‘Welsh by compulsion breeds resentment’?

As I said, these are matters for Carmarthenshire council. As a Government, we of course are supportive of the Welsh language, we want to see an extension of Welsh-medium education and more children involved in it. But, at the end of the day, it is for Carmarthenshire council to justify the decisions that it takes, in view of the elections coming in May, of course.

I agree that that is the constitutional position, but the Welsh Government—because this is a Welsh Government policy for improving the condition of the Welsh language in Wales, and maximising its appeal and its reach—must have a persuasive influence here. There is a practical solution to this problem, because at the moment there are three Welsh-medium schools in Llanelli with 170 surplus places, 120 out-of-area Welsh-speaking pupils are currently being brought into the school in Llangennech, whilst 81 English-medium pupils are being taken out of the school in Llangennech. What we need to do is have a practical solution on the ground that satisfies both parties. That can be done without putting at risk the acceptability of what otherwise, I think, is an excellent policy that shows the way for the Welsh language.

Well, these are matters that I would have expected Carmarthenshire council to consider in coming to the decision that they did. It’s not a matter for Welsh Government to intervene, but it is important, of course, that any local authority takes into account the views of those who live locally, whilst considering, of course, the encouragement that we give as a Government to supporting the Welsh language. But, ultimately, it is a matter for the council to decide and, of course, to explain.

Arweinydd Plaid Cymru, Leanne Wood.

Diolch. I’m sure Carmarthenshire council would have appreciated more support from you, First Minister, when it comes to the Welsh language, but I want to turn to a matter of income differences. [Interruption.] First Minister, when it comes to differences in income between regions—.

Can we hear the leader of Plaid Cymru please?

Diolch, Lywydd. When it comes to differences in income between its regions and nations, the UK is one of the most unequal states in Europe, and Wales suffers from this imbalance as well. To address this imbalance, our market towns and post-industrial towns need good-quality public sector jobs. HMRC, DWP and the jobcentre are moving jobs from towns that suffer from low wages, like Porthmadog, Llanelli, and Porth in the Rhondda, and jobs are being moved to more centralised sites. It’s not just UK Government departments doing this; there’s a consultation on moving ambulance service jobs from Carmarthenshire to Bridgend. Do you recognise this centralisation agenda, and are you concerned about jobs and services being moved out of communities to a smaller number of locations?

Yes, and I deplored the decision taken by HMRC in Porthmadog and other locations, including my own town some years ago. In the same way, certainly, I’m concerned about the withdrawal of commercial banks from many of our communities, and the need to ensure that, for example, the post office is then able to offer up the same kinds of services that the bank does. That depends, of course, on the post offices being there as well, which is why, of course, we had the post office development fund in place that helped so many communities to keep that service.

I share your concern about the post offices and banks, and there’s a real concern about the viability of some of our town centres if this agenda continues. We know what the UK Government agenda is, but, First Minister, you have levers too to counter this through the Welsh Revenue Authority. Plaid Cymru would agree that Treforest industrial estate is a better location than Cardiff, but that decision means that Porthmadog and Wrexham feel very hard done by, and they now need an alternative offer. So, what plans do you have to support a Welsh public sector presence in the north-west of Wales and also in Wrexham? You’ve said that the WRA will have a presence in Aberystwyth and Llandudno; how many jobs does ‘a presence’ represent? And when it comes to the targets that you have for the distribution of Welsh Government jobs across the country, are you on course to reach those targets?

In terms of the number of jobs, the total number of jobs will be 40 in the Welsh Revenue Authority. There will be some people who will be able to be based at home in order to work. I did look very, very carefully at where the WRA could be based, and a report was commissioned to that end, and Members should know that report, I believe, was placed in the Library on Friday. The skills that are required for the Welsh Revenue Authority at the moment are skills that aren’t actually available in Wales to any great extent. They’re not the same skills as the people in Porthmadog have. We have to recruit from outside Wales, in the main, in order for those skills to be available to us when the Welsh Revenue Authority begins in April. It was made very clear to me that bringing people to Cardiff in order to work was the option that was easiest in terms of recruiting people, but, of course, that doesn’t mean in the future that the body can’t reconsider where it might go. But, at the moment, certainly, the body will go to Treforest, and that was the strong advice—that that was by far the location that was favourable in terms of being able to attract the people with the specialist skills, many of whom are actually in London at the moment.

First Minister, if there’s a skills shortage in Wales, that’s your responsibility. You are responsible for the skills of people in this country.

I want to move on to transport now, though. Twelve months ago, you unveiled a plan for the north Wales metro, and that plan failed to include Gwynedd, Conwy or Ynys Môn, although it did include Cheshire, Liverpool and Manchester. The maps indicate that many of the routes are existing rail and bus lines, and your economy Secretary was quoted by the BBC as saying that £50 million would be available for this. Do you really think that £50 million is enough to deliver an actual metro? Will you commit today that both metro systems that are planned in Wales will start with the points furthest away from the densely populated towns and cities, so that those people who feel distant from this institution, from the centres and the arterial roads, are able to see some early benefit from this transport investment?

First of all, the Welsh Revenue Authority will be up and running in April of next year. It needs people quickly; it’s not possible to train people up in the specialist skills in the time allowed, and that was the—

You’ve known this for years.

And that was the judgment that we took. It’s not possible suddenly to train and have a pool of skilled people in a very short space of time. Those people are in London, in the main, at the moment; they are specialists, and we’re looking to recruit them. The skills don’t exist, in the main, in Wales.

In terms of transport, the metro was our idea. Of course we want to promote it. The north-east Wales metro was our idea, the south Wales metro was first mentioned by me in Bedwas rugby club in 2008, of all places, and we are seeing movement on that. The development work on the north-east Wales metro is moving forward and, of course, we will continue to support transport in all parts of Wales. We have called incessantly for the electrification of the north Wales main line as far as Holyhead, and that is something we want to see the UK Government deliver in the future. We want to make sure, as we look at the north-east Wales metro, that, in time, it can look then to expand west. These are not metro systems that are designed to be self-contained; they are systems that are designed to be extended in the future.