Questions now from the party leaders. The leader of Plaid Cymru, Leanne Wood.

Diolch, Llywydd. The negotiations for the UK to withdraw from the European Union have now begun, and the importance of those negotiations to Wales is beyond doubt. In the first quarter of 2017, our trade surplus with the EU increased to £2.5 million. I’m of the view that the UK election a fortnight ago did not deliver a mandate to leave the single market. Do you agree?

The general election did not deliver a mandate for a hard Brexit, and, as her party and my party have agreed, what we need is full and unfettered access to the single market. That view hasn’t changed and nor will it change in the future.

First Minister, on a visit to Airbus on Deeside, the company told me that their two key priorities for the UK’s future relationship with the European Union were, firstly, that there should be no tariffs on their goods and parts, and, secondly, that they should be able to benefit from freedom of movement of skilled workers. We’ve recently heard warnings from Airbus that a failure to meet these priorities could jeopardise jobs and business investment. You would want to guarantee those two priorities, in line with our joint White Paper, but, at a Confederation of British Industry dinner on Friday, you said that membership of the single market would be incompatible with the EU referendum result. Will you now provide clarity? Are you ruling out membership of the European Free Trade Association and are you ruling out being a part of the European Economic Area?

I would remind the leader of Plaid Cymru what she’s already agreed to as part of the White Paper. The position is well understood. You cannot be a member of the single market without being a member of the EU. You can have access to the single market without being a member of the EU, as Norway has demonstrated and as the EFTA countries have demonstrated. I don’t rule out membership of EFTA. I don’t rule out membership of the EEA, for that matter either, particularly in the short term. But if you are a member of the single market, it implies you have a say in the rules under which that market operates. The people of the UK have said they don’t want to be part of the EU and, therefore, don’t want to have a say in the way the market operates. That doesn’t mean we can’t have access to the single market.

What’s important for Airbus—and there are two issues for Airbus—first of all, is that they are able to sell in the single market not just without tariff barriers, but non-tariff barriers, or regulatory barriers, as well, and, secondly, work visas. She will know that there are people who travel back and for between Toulouse, Filton and Broughton every day to work, and Airbus fear that those people may need work visas, either for every visit, or perhaps for a period of time in the future, which can’t be good in terms of Broughton’s position vis-à-vis its future. We need to make sure that visas are not required for those workers and, secondly, that there are no tariffs, either in terms of regulation or in terms of money, that obstruct Airbus’s full and unfettered access to the single market that exists at the moment.

First Minister, you are all over the place on this. [Interruption.] Labour MPs are using the term ‘single market membership’. Chuka Umunna has said that access to the single market doesn’t go far enough. Your shadow trade Secretary, Barry Gardiner, has spoken of reformed membership of the single market—membership. Now, there are implications for Airbus from both of those positions when it comes to freedom of movement, and for our other industries as well. We’re once again seeing a multitude of positions on this inside the Labour Party and between the Welsh and the UK branches. First Minister, now that the formal negotiations are under way, what will you do to ensure that the final deal is one that works for Wales?

I would sometimes hope that the leader of Plaid Cymru actually listens to my answer and then adapts the question she asks before she asks it. She was accusing me of being all over the place. Firstly, she said to me, ‘You’ve said you’re not in favour of membership of the EU’, and then she talked about EFTA, which is an entirely different organisation, consisting of three countries: Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland. She herself—her party has already agreed that you can’t be a member of the single market without being a member of the EU. That is what we agreed, if she remembers that. She accuses me of being all over the place. She’s forgotten that. I don’t want to get into a debate that is not needed between two parties that agree on the same thing, namely that we want to make sure that Welsh businesses have full and unfettered access to the single market. If you’re a member of it, you have a say in its rules. You cannot have a say in its rules unless you’re in the EU, and that matter has been resolved. What we need to do is to make sure we get the best deal—full, unfettered access to the single market for Welsh businesses, as she’s already agreed to.

We understand that there is a difference between membership and access, but, as far as Welsh businesses are concerned, we want to make sure that that is an invisible difference, that we look at other models such as the EEA, such as EFTA, particularly in the transitional period—because there isn’t going to be a deal by March 2019. Everybody sensibly understands that. It is a great shame that, instead of contributing to the debate, she forgets what her own party’s already agreed to.

That’s absolute rubbish.

You weren’t there. How many voices?

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

I feel as if I’m intruding on a bit of a domestic here, and we’re seeing the coalition of chaos right in front of us, believe it or not. When—[Interruption.] Hopefully when we get to agenda item 4 this afternoon, you might give a bit more clarity to the position, First Minister, because if your partners don’t understand it, what hope has anyone else got to understand it?

But I would like to understand what the Welsh Government position is regarding the targets for the PISA examination results for 2021, because your education Secretary said, in the children and young people committee meeting last Thursday, that the target that had been set by the previous Government and your Minister—a Labour Minister, Huw Lewis—of having a score of 500 in the three categories was not her target. Can you give us some clarity as to what is the Welsh Government’s target for the 2021 PISA results?

Achieving 500 in 2021 remains the Welsh Government’s target. The Cabinet Secretary was correct in the sense that she didn’t set the target, because she wasn’t a Minister at the time, but she is part of the Government that is adhering to that target. But remember, the target is one diagnostic indicator amongst many others such as GCSE performance, the closing of the attainment gap, school categorisation and Estyn inspections.

That is a slap down, in fairness, First Minister, to your Cabinet Secretary. You either have a target that the department and the Cabinet Secretary work to, and the education system here in Wales works to—and we welcome the target, because it gives a direction of travel—but it is a fact that twice, now, a target has been disowned by successive Cabinet Secretaries on education here in your Government: obviously, Leighton Andrews’s target of being in the top 20 by 2015, and then on Thursday, the target of having 500 in the three categories by 2021 was disowned by the Cabinet Secretary. So, can you tell me how, in this disjointed Government, can educationalists, parents and pupils have any confidence that by 2021 we will see this Government hitting that target and delivering the improvements we want to see in education?

The target remains. We’ll continue to invest in education. We will not have grammar schools in Wales, nor will we reduce education spending, as his party has advocated for many years.

Is that it? Is that the answer—the sum total of your answer? You’ve got you saying one thing—that a target exists—and you’ve got the Cabinet Secretary confirming in front of a scrutiny committee of this Assembly that it is not her target. Who’s taking ownership of education here in Wales? Is it any wonder it is such a complete shambles under your leadership? Again, I ask you: will you commit to a road map of how the education system here in Wales will hit your target in 2021, or the Cabinet Secretary’s ambition for where she wants education to be? You can’t have two targets, First Minister.

Let me say it for the third time: achieving 500 in 2021 remains the Welsh Government’s target. The Cabinet Secretary was making a statement of fact that she wasn’t the Minister in place at the time the target was set, but the target is the Government’s target.

He talks about a coalition of chaos and a shambles. I see that Ruth Davidson, his Scottish colleague, is allowed into UK Cabinet meetings; he’s banned. He’s banned. How much humiliation can one man take? He was replaced for the leaders’ debates in the election. How much humiliation can one man take? He actually allowed himself to be trampled over by Theresa May, who came to the Welsh Conservatives’ manifesto launch, elbowed him out of the way, banned him from coming to the launch, and then made a speech that turned the election around in our favour. So, thanks very much for that. When we hear the word ‘shambles’ we can take no lessons from the experts who sit on the benches opposite.

Leader of the UKIP group, Neil Hamilton.

Diolch yn fawr iawn, Llywydd. I’m sure the First Minister, like me, is looking on with envy at the Democratic Unionists in Northern Ireland using their muscle in the House of Commons to extort the best possible deal in the interests of the people of Northern Ireland. And instead of refighting the last war, as the leader of Plaid Cymru seems intent on doing, wouldn’t it be better for Plaid Cymru members in the House of Commons to use their pivotal position to get the best possible deal for Wales by increasing the size of our block grant or any one of the numerous things that we want, which would improve the lives of the Welsh people?

I wouldn’t advise any party to extort money, as the leader of UKIP put it, but it is right to say that the UK Government must listen. It does not have a mandate for the kind of Brexit that it wished. It failed to achieve that in the election, and now is the time for them to listen to sensible voices in order that there should be a sensible Brexit that works for the people of Wales, the people of Britain, and particularly for businesses and jobs.

Well, I’m sure we’ll explore this point further later on this afternoon in the statement on the Government’s paper on Brexit.

I want to move to another issue. As a result of the dreadful fire in Kensington and the terrible loss of life that was suffered there, is it not rather undesirable for the leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, to try to weaponise this as an issue and to incite people to occupy private property in order to house those who have been dispossessed? It is a very dangerous situation indeed for politicians in positions of responsibility to use such things. We know that there are certain important members of the Labour Party who believe that insurrection is an acceptable political tool. John McDonnell many times has said that parliamentary democracy is only one option, and that the picket lines and the streets are the places where the real political battles can be fought. So, does the First Minister agree with me that it would be most unfortunate if the Labour Party were to perpetuate this kind of rhetoric?

I’m afraid that the leader of UKIP exposes a complete lack of humanity, I have to say. People have died here. People have died. Jeremy Corbyn, as an MP for the local area, went to visit people. He went to comfort many people who were his constituents, and he expressed the anger of many who felt that, at the time, they weren’t being given sufficient support, whether it was by local government or central Government. I make no comment on that because I think, this week, it’s hugely important to focus on the fact that people have died, and to focus on the fact that it’s hugely important that we learn the lessons of what happened in order to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. That is the message of this week, not a cheap political point that he’s trying to score.

Well, it’s very far from a cheap political point. I was quoting from one of our national newspapers—[Interruption.]—where the headline is

‘Let inferno victims seize empty homes, says Corbyn’.

He’s the one who said it. I have no objection, obviously, to Jeremy Corbyn articulating the views of people, particularly those of his constituents. We all do that. But in these highly charged situations, it is very dangerous indeed for rhetoric of that kind to be used when sobriety in the way that we express ourselves is to be desired. To attempt to make political capital out of this in that way, I think, is very undesirable indeed.

He is, indeed, right to say that sobriety is needed. It’s a shame he didn’t follow his own advice, I have to say. He quotes from a national newspaper. Well, as we all know, the papers are always correct about everything, and he has past experience of such things. He has gravely misjudged the mood, I believe, of our nation of Wales and the UK this afternoon. He has gravely misjudged the mood of this Chamber, I believe, and he must reflect, as somebody who has been in politics for many years, on the comments that he has made, and reflect as to whether, in fact, the comments that he has made reflect the humanity that we share in this Chamber, because I don’t believe that they do.