Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:08 pm on 15 March 2017.
Well, I think that the people who are in housing need, and who do benefit and whom I’ve met—not just in terms of affordable and social housing, but in terms of those who have access to help to buy as first-time buyers—would, I think, disagree with your disputing of figures, which, of course, are very clear in terms of the 20,000 affordable homes that we have committed ourselves to, in terms of our ‘Taking Wales Forward’.
On the environment, we’ve invested in flood protection. Yesterday, we heard of the status that we are achieving, in partnership with local government, in terms of being a world leader in recycling: second in Europe, third in the world, in the first half of 2016-17. We recycled 62 per cent of our waste—significantly better, again, than England—Carl Sargeant made that point very clearly—recycling rates are under 44 per cent. Aren’t you proud to live in Wales, as Rhianon Passmore says? We are doing all of this against the backdrop of austerity, in the shadow of a Conservative UK Government that has systematically failed to invest in public services. It’s taken from the poor and the vulnerable at the very time when it should be supporting them. It’s squandered billions in pet projects that benefit the well-off and entitled. So, we will take no lessons from the Conservatives about government. In Westminster, theirs is a Government of broken promises—a Government which, last week, as Rhianon Passmore so eloquently described and reminded us, broke a manifesto commitment not to increase national insurance contributions. [Interruption.] Yes, this afternoon—as Simon Thomas said earlier on, the smell of rubber with the u-turn, the spectacular u-turn, dropping their plans. But I have a serious question for Andrew R.T. Davies, for you to ask your colleagues in Westminster. This u-turn has left a £645 million hole in this budget and his spending plans for social care and schools. So, I would ask that question: what is now going to be scrapped and cut as a result of that u-turn?
But, on a very serious note about the clash and differences of our values, this is the same Tory Government that prematurely scrapped the Dubs amendment scheme after giving just a tenth of the child refugees it had originally promised a safe haven in the UK. That makes me angry. It makes a lot of people angry here in Wales. Because, in Wales, we have a warm welcome for refugees. We support our local authorities in their vital role in caring for migrants and asylum seekers.
So, Dirprwy Lywydd, the Tory UK Government will have taken £1 billion from Wales in the decade since 2011—money that our public services desperately need. Dirprwy Lywydd, I want to close by returning to our record as a Welsh Government. Yes, thank you for acknowledging that, last May, I was very proud when the people of Wales re-elected Welsh Labour as the majority party to form a Government, and that we have set out an ambition, a programme for government, and that Kirsty Williams is part of our Government. ‘Taking Wales Forward’ will help us deliver that. But I would say to this Assembly, finally, that we are in power at a critically important time—arguably the most important time of the last 18 years. Six weeks after the Assembly election, Wales voted to leave the European Union. As a Government, we’re working to ensure that Wales’s best interests are both represented and secured during the negotiations to leave Europe. We have worked closely with Plaid Cymru to produce the White Paper ‘Securing Wales’s Future’. This is where we share—and we must; we have to a duty to share—responsibility, because we have to put the interests of Wales first. That is what this Welsh Labour Government is doing, and I am proud of it.