Diolch, Lywydd. Could I also thank the Assembly for the chance to be the first Member to make use of this new piece of business? I’d also like to thank my former office manager, Mark Major, who brought the whole subject to my attention when I first became an Assembly Member.

A six-year campaign began with a statement of opinion in 2011, seeking support for the mandatory teaching of emergency life-saving skills in school and then a short debate in which the present education Secretary, as well as Plaid and Labour Members, spoke in its favour. Support came from every party in the fourth Assembly, and it seems that every party in this fifth Assembly also supports the principle. I want to thank all of those of you who have already tabled your support for the proposal today, the core of which is the right to be trained to save a life. In so doing, you’re supporting a principle that has been fought for over many years.

The introduction of mandatory life-saving skills onto the school curriculum is supported by the British Heart Foundation, St John Ambulance, the British Red Cross, but also the College of Paramedics, the Royal College of Physicians, Cardiac Risk in the Young, British Cardiovascular Society Education, the Association for Physical Education, the NT—in England, anyway—Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome UK, the Royal College of Nursing, the Arrhythmia Alliance UK, the British Medical Association, the Welsh ambulance service, the Atrial Fibrillation Association, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, the Royal Life Saving Society and many others. I’ve had e-mails of support and social media support for this for the last 48 hours. It’s been utterly amazing.

You are also supporting the wishes of parents and young people. The British Heart Foundation found that 86 per cent of UK parents want emergency and lifesaving skills taught in schools—it’s actually 88 per cent in Wales. Seventy-eight per cent of children themselves wanted to learn it in school, and 75 per cent of teachers, who already have a crowded curriculum, want this taught in our schools. You are also supporting the wishes of Labour MP Teresa Pearce. Ms Pearce had cross-party support for her Bill on a similar theme, but it was talked out—a process we don’t have here—by that infamous Conservative MP, Philip Davies. In this ongoing campaign, Cabinet Secretary, I wonder how comfortable you would find yourself to be on the same side of the argument as the infamous Conservative MP Philip Davies.

So, why legislation? Well, first of all, I want to congratulate all schools who have given their time voluntarily and used school time to give their children a chance to save lives. I want to congratulate those charities—I’ve mentioned some already—the public services, the military cadets, Heartstart and Reactive First Aid, who can provide training of all kinds, and charities like Cariad who help provide defibrillators. Hats off to Shoctober, Defibruary, Save a Life September, Staying Alive—you all remember Vinnie Jones on that one—defibrillators in old phone boxes, and all the awareness campaigns. This is excellent work and, without it, our poor survival rates for cardiac arrest outside the hospital environment would be even worse. Around 90 per cent of those victims will die—perhaps even more, according to one source—and even though most of these victims will have somebody with them when they suffer their event, they will still die. Without circulating blood, it takes only six minutes for a victim to have permanent brain damage. After 10 minutes, it’s basically too late. So, shouldn’t a child grow up with the right to know how to intervene—how to help save a life?

In 2013, only 20 per cent of children in England and Wales had had a minimum of one lifesaving skills lesson in the whole of their school life, and one lesson is nowhere near enough here. You can tell, because only 4 per cent of them had the confidence to intervene—4 per cent. Yet, 94 per cent of secondary schoolchildren said that they would be more confident if they had updated training relatively regularly. I wish nothing but the best for the Government’s cardiac plan, but if you can’t guarantee whole-population level uptake, competence and confidence, step one of that plan will fail because of the random occurrence of cardiac arrest. And on the basis that you say we still need a mapping exercise to know who provides CPR; that you still have to go to page two of Google to get anywhere near the ambulance service’s list of defibrillators; and that Donaldson’s curriculum change is some time away, I don’t think we have time for good will and good work to give us that whole-population level change.

Eight thousand people in Wales will have a heart attack outside a hospital setting this year, and most of them will die because of bystander ignorance or fear. So, who has that whole-population uptake, competence and confidence in first aid skills—and it’s not just CPR? Well, let’s have a look at the screens: Norway, 95 per cent; Germany, 80 per cent; Austria, 80 per cent; Iceland, 75 per cent. Even France is at 40 per cent. Now how did that happen? Because of a legislative obligation to receive mandatory lifesaving skills training at various periods in the lives of those citizens. In Denmark and Switzerland, you can’t even get your driving licence unless you’ve done this training. And which countries have the highest rate of survival for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest? Some of them are at well over 50 per cent—that’s compared to our 3 to 10 per cent. Well, I’m sure that you can guess.

This legislative proposal is not just about cardiac arrest, about CPR and defibrillators; I want our children growing up with the confidence to intervene when they encounter a person who is bleeding, unconscious, fitting, choking, who’s been electrocuted, or shows signs of drowning. A new scheme in the poorest part of northern Bangladesh has acted on this last point, and nine-year-olds there are having to learn CPR and how to save a life after a potential drowning. And these are just proposals, of course. They’re not fully developed, but they’re certainly not difficult or expensive to deliver. They don’t clash with Professor Donaldson’s suggestion that legislation should be used to define a broad set of duties. You could start consulting on these tomorrow. So, Members, I think this is an occasion where the Norway model definitely is appropriate for Wales, and I recommend these proposals to you and to the people of Wales.