I now call for questions from the party leaders. First of all, Plaid Cymru leader, Leanne Wood.

Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, people across Wales are grieving for those in Manchester and further afield following the horrific events last night. I’d like to pass on my condolences and solidarity with everyone affected. The senseless violence and the fact that there are children and young people among the victims has left the whole of the UK devastated. I know you made a statement earlier on, but can you place on record all of our appreciation for the men and the women of the emergency services and all of those people who have worked overnight and today to treat the wounded and to help those get to safety? It’s worth reiterating, in my view, how much our public service workers are valued at a difficult time like this.

Very much so. I’m sure that the entire Chamber was supportive of what I said earlier on and indeed what the leader of Plaid Cymru has said. There are always exercises to look at how attacks like this can be dealt with, but when it actually happens, then, of course, the system is tested very rigorously. And certainly, what we have seen from the emergency services, what we’ve seen from the hospitals and what we’ve seen from the community shows the level of resilience even in the face of tragedy.

Thank you for that answer, First Minister. While the facts as to who is responsible are still being established, we know that attacks like this can put enormous strain upon community relations in Welsh cities as well as in other parts of the UK. One of the objectives of extremists, aside from harming innocent people, is to divide communities. They want to make people fearful and suspicious of each other so that they can profit from alienation and division. The real story is of people of all backgrounds and faiths, emergency workers, taxi drivers, coming together to face down those extremists. Will you reiterate today, First Minister, that none of us here will let terrorists divide our communities?

Absolutely not. Extremists only represent themselves; a very small number of people with a worldview that is intolerant and is driven to violence. They are happy to murder people of all religions or none. They are happy to murder young people who are doing nothing more than going out for a night out. It’s too early to say, of course, the extent of what surrounded the events last night. The police are still investigating and it is important that there’s no speculation in order for those investigations to be carried forward. But make no mistake: whoever carried out the attacks of last night represented only themselves and a very small group of people around them. They can never represent an entire community.

Diolch yn fawr, First Minister, and I’m sure that message will be appreciated by many communities throughout Wales and beyond. It’s important, First Minister, that everyone remains calm and that we don’t change the way we live our lives in the face of this senseless and tragic violence. People planning to visit our capital city in the coming weeks need further reassurance. Can you update the Assembly on the security preparations for major events such as the Champions League final in Cardiff on 3 June?

Yes. I touched on this in the conversation I had with the deputy national security advisor. The security arrangements for the Champions League final are robust. I met with a number of the organisations involved last week for the final time, including gold command. All the preparations are in place in terms of communications and in terms of security. Members and indeed members of the public will see over the course of the next few days the arrangements being put in place in order that people can come to our capital city to enjoy themselves and be left with a favourable impression. We know there are some people who would not wish that to be so. Anything that can be learned from the events over the last 24 hours will be factored in to the security arrangements for the Champions League final. But this is the world we live in. We are aware of what needs to be done in order to provide for the security of the public when they come to our capital city, and working with the police and other authorities, that’s exactly what we intend to do.

Leader of the opposition, Andrew R.T. Davies.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. If I may, Presiding Officer, I will not take my three questions today, given I think we need to stand shoulder to shoulder and face down this act of evil, this atrocity that happened in Manchester last night. As a father, I cannot think of anything more horrific than being separated from your children, separated from your loved ones, in the uncertain knowledge of what might have happened to them. I, like many parents, would have dropped my children off at events, to meet at a designated spot, and they come back safely. I can only offer my love, my support, my condolence to each and every member who’s gone through a bereavement, the injured in hospital and pay tribute to the dedication of the public services who responded so quickly and so professionally to that atrocity, that act of evil, that visited Manchester last night.

But I would like to put three points to you, if I may, First Minister. The first is that what became evident today was the amount of people who did go from north Wales to Manchester, as they do on an everyday basis to attend events in Manchester. On the radio this morning, there were many parents and many youngsters who’d attended that event. There will be a requirement for help and support. I don’t know the destination of some of the bereaved or, obviously, the injured parties in the hospitals, or where they’ve come from, but I’m sure some of those individuals will have come from north Wales. I know it’s early hours and early days yet, but what calibration, what work is the Welsh Government doing with the public services in north Wales to make sure that that help and support is there for the families, in the education field but also in the health field as well, to make sure that no stone is left unturned when families look for that support and look for that help from those services in north Wales? And if extra resources are required—I’m sure you will confirm this—those extra resources will be made available to local authorities and also to the health boards.

Secondly, as the leader of Plaid Cymru quite clearly identified, we do have a major sporting event in the Champions League final happening here in a little over 10 days’ time, but there are events across the whole of Wales that happen on a day-to-day, week-by-week basis, and it falls to all of us to play our part to work with the security services, whether it be the police or MI5 or any of the security services, to make sure we can be the eyes and ears on the streets and reporting what we see. But how can the Welsh Government distil down any information it has so that the public can have confidence that they can attend these events in the full knowledge that every measure possible has been put in place to protect the public, and to allow democracy and our free society to continue to function, because we must not be cowered by these acts of violence? That is one thing that is quite critical.

And thirdly, what I’d like to just seek from the First Minister, as we do go forward, is that any information that is available—and the First Minister’s indicated that he has received a security briefing this morning, and I presume some of that information, not all of that information, might be confidential—but where information can be made available, it is made available in a timely manner to the public in Wales and to organisers of events so that, again, people can go about their everyday lives and play the important role that we all have to play in our great democracy of standing up against these acts of evil that visited Manchester last night. We stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of Manchester and whatever happens, we will not be beaten by such atrocities.

I thank the leader of the Welsh Conservatives for his comments. It is difficult for us in this Chamber and the vast majority of people across the world to conceive of a philosophy that holds that murdering young people advances the cause of humanity. How can we understand those thought processes? But we know that there are some, unfortunately, who hold those views, and there is, of course, a duty on all authorities to provide as much protection as possible to the public against these people.

After the events in Tunisia, we did set up a helpline that looked to provide signposting to counselling for people. We will look to do the same thing again in the aftermath of this event. We are not aware of anybody who has been injured or killed who comes from Wales as yet. There is nothing to indicate that but, of course, we will monitor the situation very, very closely.

One thing I think we do need to be careful of is not to put people off coming to events. He is right when he says that the last thing we should do is to modify our behaviour, and our beliefs for that matter, in the face of terrorism. That’s exactly what they want. They want us to become more intolerant so that we share their intolerance. They want us to alter the way in which we exercise our freedom and go to events. They see that as a victory. What I can say to people is that, of course, we will be taking further advice with regard to the Champions League, but a lot of work has already been done regarding security around the Champions League. That work has been in train for many, many months, as Members would expect, given the fact that it is an event of significant size.

In terms of information, he has identified the issues. Firstly, some information is shared on what is effectively Privy Council basis; it’s confidential. Members will understand that there is information that needs to be kept confidential so as not to interfere with any police investigation. Of course, where information is no longer sensitive and where that information needs to be shared with the public, that will happen at the appropriate time.

Leader of the UKIP group, Neil Hamilton.

Can I congratulate the First Minister on speaking so finely for us all in this Assembly in his statement at the start of today’s proceedings, and to add my condolences and the condolences of my party—Members here and members of the party in the country—to those who’ve lost their lives and been maimed in the horrible outrage in Manchester? I agree with the First Minister that it is impossible for us to understand the mindset of those who are prepared indiscriminately to slaughter children in the way that happened last night. Not the first time—in the Arndale Centre, of course, in Manchester—where an event of this kind has occurred. When I was a Member of Parliament, just a few miles away from the centre of Manchester, back in the 1990s, we had a similar kind of outrage from, in those days, the IRA.

I’m sure the First Minister will agree with me that the best way that a democratic society can fight against such tendencies is to carry on as normal so far as we can. For a democratic assembly like the National Assembly for Wales—whilst it is right that we should suspend the party-political dog fight for today, we’re in the middle of an election campaign nationally as well—the best act of defiance for us is to continue to do what democratic societies do and which totalitarian societies do not, that is to solve our differences by means of debate rather than by the bomb and the bullet.

So, I have no further questions for the first Minister today, but I’d like to express my solidarity with everyone else who has spoken on what was going to be a sombre day for us in any event because of tributes to Rhodri, but which has been made immeasurably worse by the events of last night.

Can I thank the leader of UKIP for his comments? One of the main purposes of acts such as this is to make us more angry and more intolerant in order to provoke an even greater reaction. We do not need to do that. We are bigger than they are. Today, the mood of the Chamber is sombre—that’s true, and with good reason. In the next few days, we’ll get back to debate, we’ll get back to robust electioneering—that’s the nature of what we do. But that is the essence of our democracy: robust debate and exchange of ideas is what gives us the ability to see ourselves as a free society. The actions of last night were designed to close down that which makes us a free society.

It is absolutely right to say that we should carry on. Of course we have to be cautious when it comes to security and for people who visit—not just Wales but any other country—they need to be assured that their security is paramount to us. I can say that is absolutely true as far as the Welsh Government, and indeed the UK Government, is concerned. But I have children in the age range of the majority of those who would have been at that concert last night. What exactly did they do to deserve to be injured or killed? We can’t answer that question. The answer to that question lies in a tormented, intolerant and dangerous mind. That was the mind, I believe, of the perpetrator who carried out the attack last night. But, as I said, we can get above that. The strongest message that we can send to those who wish to terrorise our society is that they cannot win, and they cannot win, because we will carry on enjoying our freedoms, we will carry on enjoying what we have built over many decades and centuries, and we will never give way to their intolerance and their violence.