I call now on party leaders to question the First Minister. The leader of the opposition, Andrew R.T. Davies.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. First Minister, last week, the Welsh Government presented its waiting list figures for the Welsh NHS, and the figures showed that, in Wales, one in seven people is on a waiting list, or 450,000 people. In England, that figure is one in 14. There are pressures across the United Kingdom when it comes to NHS services, and everyone acknowledges that. As we go into the busy winter months, and with the financial pressures that are on the Welsh NHS, with four of the seven health boards projecting a deficit in excess of £30 million, what help is your Government giving to health boards to address the spiralling numbers that are waiting on waiting lists here in Wales and, above all, the financial predicament that many LHBs face?

Well, first of all, I don’t accept the premise that the question is based on. If we look, for example, at referral-to-treatment times over 36 weeks, that’s improved by 35 per cent between March 2015 and March 2017. March 2017 was also the highest performance on the percentage of patients waiting over 26 weeks since March 2014. We know that diagnostic waiting times have improved by 58 per cent by March of this year. I don’t accept that somehow the situation is worse in every case in terms of Wales compared to England. He’s right to say that all health services face pressures.

He asks a fair question, which is: what preparations have been made for the winter? Every year, we make preparations for the winter. The pressures do come on. We’re not immune to the same pressures, as other countries in the UK, but we know that, over the past few years, the plans that we have made have been robust enough to deal with the pressures that come on during the winter, and I’m confident that we are in that same position again.

You’re quite right, First Minister; you and I could trade statistics, and the gallery upstairs and those watching on TV would just get bamboozled by those statistics, but the figures do show that, in Wales, for example, there’s been a 400 per cent increase in people waiting 12 months or more for a surgical procedure. In the best health board, Cwm Taf Local Health Board, no-one waits 12 months or more. In the worst, or one of the worst, Betsi Cadwaladr University Local Health Board, which is under the direct control of your Government, there’s been a 1,250 per cent increase in people waiting 12 months or more. So, it is the role of Government to make sure that good practice is spread out in the NHS here in Wales. So, why is someone in Betsi waiting so much longer for a procedure than someone in Cwm Taf? We only have seven health boards; surely, that good practice should be spilling out into all the health boards so that people do not see these spiralling waiting times here in Wales.

Well, what I can say is we recently announced £50 million of performance moneys in order to continue—we are now trading statistics again, but I think we have to—in order to continue this improvement trend for waiting times. The health Secretary and I have been very clear on the need for further improvement in waiting times, and all health boards have committed to further improvements by the end of March 2018. There are plans in place for all organisations and monitoring arrangements to be in place to ensure the improvement is delivered, building on the progress over the last two years. Yes, there are inconsistencies. Yes, we want to make sure those inconsistencies are dealt with, which is why we’ve allocated this money and why, of course, health boards have made the commitment that they have.

I agree with you, First Minister; the NHS is about acronyms and, obviously, statistics. But, very often, we miss the actual patients who are waiting on the clinicians who are under pressure, and they just want a straight answer. When you do have so many health boards in Wales, as I said, four of them—. And it’s worth repeating the deficits or the projected deficits that they do have, such as Hywel Dda Local Health Board, £49 million, Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Local Health Board, £35 million, Cardiff and Vale University Local Health Board, £31 million. A lot of people will say, ‘How can you manage those deficits whilst controlling and driving down the waiting times?’ Are you confident that, by the time we get to March, waiting times will be declining and the deficits will be in hand and wiped out, as the health Secretary has indicated? Or will you have to bail out the health boards that have these projected deficits?

No, we expect health boards to be able to manage with the resources that they have. Clearly, we could not be in a position where health boards knew that whatever they spent, they would be bailed out. That is an incentive for them not to be as rigorous in their financial management and their care for patients as they otherwise should be. So, they have been told that, by March of next year, we expect to see these improvements. If not, of course, they will need to explain why that is and explain why they have failed to meet the promises that they have given both to the Government and to the people of Wales.

The leader of the UKIP group, Neil Hamilton.

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. Just before we rose for the summer recess, the Government pulled the rug out from underneath the Circuit of Wales project, which would have brought hundreds of millions of pounds of much-needed private investment into the northern Valleys. As a fig leaf, the First Minister and his Government then proposed that they should invest £100 million of public money in a speculative scheme to create a new industrial park in the Ebbw Vale area. Given that the Ebbw Vale enterprise zone has been in operation now for quite a number of years, and tens of millions of pounds have already been invested in jobs in that area, but only 320 new jobs have been created and 70 safeguarded, why does the First Minister think that his speculative proposal is going to be any more successful?

I talk to businesses, and one of the issues particularly that businesses have flagged up with us is the lack of suitable premises where they can go in order to set up manufacturing. One of the issues that we’re looking at is being able to provide them with the premises that they need, of the right size. We don’t do that in terms of building empty buildings for no reason. We’ve done that by consulting with businesses, and asking businesses what they want. That’s actually a very sound way of investing for the future rather than, as he calls it, being speculative. It’s far from speculative. This is based on the feedback that we’re getting from business.

Well, there are of course no firm offers to take space in the area that the First Minister is talking about. My colleagues and I had the advantage on Friday of visiting St Athan and seeing what’s happening at the Aston Martin construction that’s going on there, which is a Welsh Government success story—I fully acknowledge that and congratulate the First Minister. But, of course, St Athan is a very different kettle of fish from Ebbw Vale in terms of its potential attractiveness to investors, without improving the infrastructure still further in the northern Valleys. The whole point of the Circuit of Wales project and the job spin-offs that would come from it is not so much the racetrack itself, but the way in which the circuit would have put it on the map, in a sense, and would have attracted further automotive businesses around it. Given that, as a result of the collapse of that offer, the Welsh Government is trying now to fill a vacuum, I really can’t see why he has turned down the offer of hundreds of millions of pounds of private investment where the Government’s only liability was highly contingent on the total failure of the project, and the assets that would have been created fetching nothing.

No, we’ve explored this before. I’ve explained to him the issue of what counts as on the books and off the books. What he describes is speculative. Every business venture is speculative to some extent. But in some ways, in the questions he asks, he answered his first question, and that is: one of the reasons why St Athan proved attractive to Aston Martin is because there was a building there that fitted their spec. It was what they wanted. The site was right. Many businesses have said to us in conversations I’ve had, ‘Look, one of the issues we face in Wales is we want to go somewhere like Ebbw Vale, but where do we go? The buildings aren’t there. The premises we need aren’t there.’ That’s why part of the investment we’re putting into Ebbw Vale, into the Heads of the Valleys, is to make sure that the right premises are there so businesses can move in, rather than an obstacle being in place that won’t be removed without Government investment. Yes, is that speculative? Well, in the sense that all business is speculative, but it’s based, to my mind, on much sounder ground than the circuit was.

But of course the Circuit of Wales was more than just speculative because there was a fully worked out business case, which I understand was not undermined by the Welsh Government. The objection of the Welsh Government’s support for the project was based upon internal accounting conventions, in its opinion, in any event, set by Her Majesty’s Treasury. So, the Circuit of Wales project itself will rise or fall upon its own economic merits. No doubt the First Minister will have seen on WalesOnline today that the promoters of the project have now come up with another proposal that perhaps they could access funding for under the city deal. So, I’m anxious not to engage in any kind of inter-party fisticuffs today that might discourage the Welsh Government from helping the project, even at this late stage, to become viable. I wonder if the First Minister can, in the most general terms, give his support to making further efforts to look at whether the Circuit of Wales could actually be made into a reality.

We’ve never rejected the circuit as an idea. It was simply the financial arrangements surrounding it. If the circuit is able to come up with a different proposal, then, of course, that’s something that we would look at. We don’t have an objection in principle, but we have to make sure that any project takes into account the interests of Welsh taxpayers and is able to demonstrate very strongly that the jobs that are promised are in fact deliverable. If there is something else that comes forward, then of course we’d look at that to see whether the circumstances have changed.

Plaid Cymru leader, Leanne Wood.

Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, can you imagine a country where megaprisons are placed in the middle of so-called enterprise zones? Or can you imagine a country that ends up being described as a Botany Bay of the twenty-first century and as a penal colony? Well, those were the words of Frances Crook, the respected chief executive of the Howard League.

First Minister, Wales must be the only country in the world where prisons are highlighted as tools for economic development, rather than as part of a country’s criminal justice system. Do you expect other prisons to close if the Port Talbot prison goes ahead? And can you confirm whether there will be a net jobs gain or do you think there’ll be a loss?

These are matters for the Ministry of Justice to answer. We’re not responsible for prison policy. But she asked a question about prisons. I have a prison in my constituency. It was very controversial when it was built. I was the ward councillor when it was built at the time. Now, no-one takes any notice of it. It employs many people, there’s a housing estate being built not far from the walls of the prison. But, nevertheless, it is important that people’s concerns are addressed, because I remember at the time people’s concerns. It is important that the MOJ carries out a full consultation with people in the area. That is their responsibility. Our responsibility lies with the issue of the land. Bluntly, we’ll look to get the best deal possible for the Welsh taxpayer for the land, regardless, of course, of how that land is disposed of. We are, on the issue of the prison, not actively promoting a prison. We want to get the best financial outcome for the Welsh taxpayer.

I’m glad you raised the question of the land, First Minister, because there’s a vision for a Swansea metro that has the potential to transform the city and its hinterland, and it’s the most attractive vision for our second city that we’ve seen in years. But the land earmarked for the Baglan prison appears to sit on the blueprint. Plaid Cymru’s view of that prison is well known, and there are Members of your own party who are in agreement with us that this is not the right site. Is it not the case that you will be selling off land that would otherwise be part of a future Swansea metro? Will you acknowledge that you are in a position to stop this project by refusing to sell this land? And if you do accept that, will you now refuse to sell that land?

Well, we would not do anything that would jeopardise the future of the Swansea metro, that’s true, but there are broader issues here that do have to be addressed. The prisons are crumbling, there’s no question about that. As somebody who was familiar with the system at one time with my job, our prisons are long overdue being replaced—we know that some of them are Victorian. We export prisoners. Women prisoners cannot serve their sentences in Wales. There’s no category A prison in Wales. We still have too many prisoners who are unable to serve their time close to their communities, and that’s important from their perspective in terms of their rehabilitation. What I don’t know is whether she takes the view that there shouldn’t be a prison at all, or whether it should move on to another site. If it is the case that she would want it moved to another site, we’d be open to suggestions as to where that should be.

You could argue there should be multiple sites, First Minister. All of the problems that you have just outlined will not be solved by building this megaprison so close to another new prison. Your economic policy is leading us to a situation where our national interests are not being upheld. Devolution and self-government are supposed to allow us to look after our own needs, to be an equal partner with our neighbours and not a servant. These superprisons are designed for the criminal justice needs not of our country, but of the country next door. And it’s not me saying that, it’s coming from the top English and UK voices on prison reform. Why are you setting up a commission on justice if not to deal with questions like this?

And it’s not just about prisons, First Minister, it’s this mantra of jobs at any cost that has led you to accepting the disposal of mud from a nuclear site in Welsh waters. What on earth is Wales doing taking waste from another country that could be radioactive? I don’t know why you granted that licence in the first place. I’d like to know whether you have any regrets about granting that licence. Will you agree to revoke it if it transpires that there is even the smallest risk to people’s health?

Well, she’s telling half the story. First of all, she knows full well that licensing is not done by Ministers; it’s done by an outside body—that’s the whole point—so that the politics is taken out of it. What I’ve seen so far is one person has said there may be an issue here. Well, of course, that issue needs to be addressed, but we’ve got be careful here because the waste from Wylfa goes to England, and if it wasn’t for Sellafield’s reprocessing plant it would shut immediately.

She has views on nuclear power that perhaps I wouldn’t share, but it’s too crude simply to say, ‘Well, this is nuclear waste being exported from England to Wales.’ We export a lot more out towards Sellafield. So, I don’t accept that this is an import-export issue. Where we have nuclear power, it’s important that there are adequate disposal facilities, but simply to present it in terms of an England-Wales battle ignores the fact we have our own nuclear power station, and we don’t have our own disposal facilities; we rely on England to deal with the waste that comes from Wylfa.