The following amendments have been selected: amendment 1 in the name of Jane Hutt, and amendments 2 and 3 in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendments 2 and 3 will be deselected.

We now move to item 10 on our agenda, which is a Welsh Conservative debate on the Welsh Government’s national strategy. I call on Andrew R.T. Davies to move the motion.

Motion NDM6513 Paul Davies

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1. Notes the Welsh Government’s national strategy, ‘Prosperity for All’.

2. Regrets the document’s lack of detail and specific targets for the Labour-led government during the fifth Assembly.

3. Calls on the Welsh Government to outline specific and measurable targets for it to achieve by 2021 relating to the economy, education system and health service.

Motion moved.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. It’s my pleasure to rise and move the motion in the name of Paul Davies on the order paper this afternoon, in relation to the document that the Welsh Government brought forward last week, ‘Prosperity for All’, which the First Minister introduced as a statement in the National Assembly here. And, obviously, we had the education tranche statement yesterday to put a bit more meat on the bones of the original statement. And the document obviously tries to encapsulate what the Welsh Government will be seeking to do in the weeks, months and years left to this Assembly and how people, by 2021, would be able to judge the Government and the effects that that Government has had on the people of Wales.

The debate today is moved on the basis that, obviously, the document is so light on the indicators that the people of Wales will be able to use to benchmark the progress that this Government has had in improving the outcomes in health, education and the economy and a whole field of other areas that the Welsh Government has responsibility over. And it is to try and tease out from the First Minister some more detail as to exactly how this document will differ from previous documents that successive Welsh Labour Governments have brought before this Chamber and previous Assemblies when looking to, obviously, map out how the Government is seeking to improve education, the economy, and health.

We will not be supporting the Government’s amendment to the motion and we will be supporting the two amendments tabled on behalf of Plaid Cymru.

If we take the economy to start with, and the questions that I put to the First Minister during his statement last week, no-one actually wants to see Wales get poorer, and we do all want many of the proposals that are put forward in this document to actually succeed. But when you’ve had a Government in place for 18 years and you look at the economic outcomes here in Wales, they aren’t something that we can particularly celebrate. Time and time again, I’ve used GVA—and other politicians in this Chamber have used GVA—as a good benchmark to see exactly what the economic performance is of Wales. And the First Minister uses an example of himself, being a resident in Bridgend, but obviously working in Cardiff, as a distortion to those figures—it doesn’t really show the full picture. Well, actually, if you take Wales’s GVA as a total, it amounts to some £55 billion. That means that Wales accounts for about 5 per cent of the UK population, but it only produces just over 3 per cent of the UK’s wealth—this after 18 years of Labour in Government.

Now, from this document, it would be good to try and understand how the Welsh Government will seek to push those percentages higher, which, ultimately, then, will have a dramatic impact on the wealth of the country, and, in particular, the wealth of individuals, by pushing up take-home pay rates here in Wales. If we look at the GVA figures around Wales—and I used, in my response to the statement last week, Anglesey as a good example—Anglesey’s GVA stands at £13,411. The Gwent valleys, for example, is £13,608, and the central Valleys area is £15,429, and Cardiff and Vale, then—the disparity—£22,783. But you look at other areas of the UK that have successfully, over the years, increased the GVA rates. If you take the GVA rate in Anglesey, it has only grown by 1.3 per cent, but, by contrast, if you take the Wirral, for example, just across Offa’s Dyke, that has grown by 5.5 per cent. Tower Hamlets, for example, has grown by 3.5 per cent. So, it can be done in areas that you could say have struggled over the past. And this document that was presented by the Government doesn’t offer you any encouragement to believe that this Welsh Government will have any more success than previous Welsh Labour Governments.

If we look at take-home pay, for example, the average take-home pay for someone in Wales is only £492. The UK median weekly wage is £538. If you could get up to the average here in Wales, imagine how much more money would be circulating in the entire Welsh economy. Twenty years ago, Welsh and Scottish workers had identical pay packets of £301 per week, but, 20 years later, a Welsh pay packet contains £492, whereas a Scottish pay packet contains £535. That’s £43 a week extra in a pay packet in Scotland as opposed to Wales. Again, I refer to the document and I cannot see how the Welsh Government will be closing that gap. It’s fair enough for the Welsh Government to point out that their budget is not as big as they would like it to be, but, if that capital was introduced via take-home pay into the Welsh economy, think what a difference that would make here in Wales.

We also look at urban regeneration in particular as a way of driving economic growth and cities, in particular, being the engine for growth for regions. Yet, if you look at the way the Welsh cities are identified in the league tables—Cardiff, Swansea and Newport, for example—they rank among some of the worst-performing towns and cities in the UK in relation to GVA, export activity, and employment rates. In Cardiff, the employment rate is 69 per cent, ranking Cardiff 48 out of 63 towns and cities. I’m as proud of Cardiff as any Member in this Chamber, actually, as I have the huge privilege of being a regional Member who represents Cardiff; I want to see the youngest capital city in Europe being the most successful capital city. But, when you look at those sorts of numbers, you can’t refer back to the document and actually find a route-map that will show how the Welsh Government are going to move Cardiff and the other cities forward.

I do pay tribute to the activities of Lee Waters on this, in particular around automation and robotics. And, when you look at the figures that are projected over the next 10 years, 15 per cent of jobs are factored in to be lost because of automation and robotics in the workplace. By 2037, only 20 years on, 35 per cent of jobs that we understand as jobs today will not be in the workplace. Again, this document does not address those real challenges that, ultimately, if addressed correctly, could make Wales a far more prosperous and ambitious country.

If we move into health, a constant debating point in this Chamber, and rightly so when nearly 50 per cent of the Welsh Government’s budget is allocated to health and social care and projected to go above 50 per cent in the coming years to 57 per cent—. When we look at waiting times, for example, where it’s not unreasonable—that’s most probably the biggest benchmark that most people measure the success or failure of our health service to respond, because, if we have a condition identified, we want it treated in a timely manner. But yet we found out only last week that 450,000 people are on a waiting list here in Wales—one in seven people on a waiting list—as opposed to other parts of the United Kingdom, which do have their challenges—all parts of the modern health service in the western hemisphere have challenges—. But, time and time again, our waiting times are deteriorating and, equally, when you flip the coin and you look at the financials of the health service here in Wales, where four of the health boards have a combined deficit of £146 million in this financial year, I just cannot, when I refer back to this document, which will be the guiding principle of the Government’s actions on health, be able to understand how this Government will be addressing the real, challenging issue of getting on top of the waiting times here in Wales and addressing the financials in the same breath.

It is difficult to reconcile the equation where the financials are running out of control and the waiting times are running out of control, with the recruitment crisis we see in GP practices, and, indeed, many consultant posts, especially in rural health, as identified by my colleague from Preseli Pembs, in Withybush hospital and other hospitals, and sustaining services so that we can have a health service that addresses the health needs here in the twenty-first century.

And I would have appreciated far more meat on the bone when it comes to air quality, for example—something that we’ve debated in this Chamber. I’ve gone specifically for this area because we know we have 2,000 premature deaths a year because of poor air quality here in Wales. Those are preventable deaths, but yet, in Stage 2 of the Public Health Bill, the Welsh Government chose to strike down a Conservative amendment that would have greatly enhanced the ability of that piece of legislation to make real progress in our communities in Wales on this pressing issue. Again, when I refer back to the document, other than fine words—warm words—around public health, I really cannot see where this document will improve the life expectancy of people here in Wales. So, I’d be grateful if the First Minister could enlighten me as to exactly what gains in public health he would like to be marked against when it comes to 2021 and the close of this fifth Assembly.

I’ll close my contribution by addressing the education aspect of the document as well, which, to its credit, identifies that too many children are lacking the opportunities when they leave school and, in particular, not getting the grades that they require. This is after 18 years of Labour in Government. I appreciate—I’ve congratulated the Cabinet Secretary on her appointment, and I’ve congratulated the Cabinet Secretary on some of the measures that she’s been taking, but we cannot go on, time and time again, with the PISA league tables indicating that we are not making progress when we are internationally benchmarked against other education systems in Europe and the world. And that is something that, when you try and refer back to the document, which—. As I’ve said, the Cabinet Secretary yesterday highlighted in her very speech—in her statement, sorry—the historical lack of focus on leadership, and those were her words in the statement. That clearly does rest at the door of the Welsh Labour Government.

There is not a Member in this Chamber who would want to see our education system go backwards. We have seen strategy after strategy come forward from successive education Secretaries, and I can well remember, week after week, Leighton Andrews standing in that very position that Mick Antoniw sits in at the moment, introducing ‘bold’ reforms to our education system that would transform the outlook and the prospects of Welsh students. Yet, when we look at where we are today—some five, six years on from many of those reforms—we haven’t made the progress when you internationally benchmark us against the other education systems that we are rightly compared against. It is important that, when initiatives are brought forward—. And this Cabinet Secretary got rid of the Schools Challenge Cymru initiative, which was only some two years into its seven-year scheme of delivery. Ultimately, it was introduced for 2014, had a life expectancy to go to 2020, but was wound up by the Cabinet Secretary. That is no way to give education professionals, parents and pupils the confidence that initiatives and policies that are brought forward by the Welsh Government will last, will make the impact, and will make the improvements that we want to see.

Again, you refer back to this document that is there to map out how the Government will take forward public services here in Wales, and you cannot—you cannot—have any confidence that this document will be any more successful than other documents brought forward by successive Governments here in the Assembly. I look forward to hearing the First Minister’s response, and I call on the Assembly to support the motion before the house this afternoon, which merely seeks to actually mark where we will be by 2021. Because, if you just use this document, you will not be able to do that when it comes to the close of this fifth Assembly.

Thank you very much. I have selected the three amendments to the motion. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendments 2 and 3 will be deselected, and I call on the First Minister to formally move amendment 1, tabled in the name of Jane Hutt.

Amendment 1—Jane Hutt

Delete points 2 and 3 and replace with:

2. Notes the new national strategy complements the ambitious pledges already set out in Taking Wales Forward, including setting up a new treatment fund and increasing spending on school standards.

3. Recognises the need for the government and all delivery partners in Wales to work better, and across existing structures, to deliver the best possible services in the face of a continuing damaging cuts agenda by the UK Government.

Amendment 1 moved.

Formally, Deputy Presiding Officer.

Diolch. I call on Adam Price to move amendments 2 and 3, tabled in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth. Adam Price.

Amendment 2—Rhun ap Iorwerth

Add as new point after point 2 and renumber accordingly:

Regrets that since 1999, Wales has fallen behind in terms of economic productivity, wages and household income when compared with the UK as a whole.

Amendment 3—Rhun ap Iorwerth

Add as new point after point 2 and renumber accordingly:

Regrets the continued delay in the Welsh Government publishing its economic strategy and its failure to consult with the business community and other stakeholders on its content.

Amendments 2 and 3 moved.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I rise to support the two amendments in the name of my colleague. One of them expresses, once again, our sense of deep frustration, which I know is shared more widely, that we still haven’t got the new economic strategy that we were promised. I remember the Cabinet Secretary saying in this Chamber a year ago that the economic strategy would be presented in the new year to the First Minister. I suppose, technically, he wasn’t misleading us, but he said this morning to the economy committee that it would be produced in the autumn. When I pressed him what ‘the autumn’ actually meant, because, remember, we were promised it in the spring, in the summer, before the recess, et cetera, he said that it will be published before Christmas. You have to ask, ‘Which Christmas are we talking about?’, but let’s actually hope that something will be forthcoming in the meantime, because we need a new economic strategy badly.

Now, what we have to rely on at the moment—. Because there have been two changes of administration since the last economic strategy that the Welsh Government presented, so we have to read the runes to understand what is the thinking behind economic policy. Now, the only comprehensive statement I’ve been able to come across, and, to be fair to him, it was written in a personal capacity, was by the chief economist of the Welsh Government. It gives us a flavour of the thinking that lies behind the Welsh Government’s economic thinking. In that, he says—it was published in the ‘Welsh Economic Review’ last year:

‘In terms of the trends since devolution on these key economic outcomes, the story is broadly positive.’

Now, ‘You get two economists in the room and you get three different viewpoints’ is the old saying. But I have to say I have to disagree. As Andrew R.T. Davies has said, if you just look at the figures—and you can cut it in a variety of ways, but, if you look at the key figures of GVA per capita, mean average weekly earnings, gross household disposable income per head, which used to be the Welsh Government’s favoured measure, on all of those we’ve gone backwards since Labour have been in power over a period of 20 years. So, that devolution dividend has not delivered. Certainly, we’ve gone backwards—marginally on some, more significantly on others, but certainly there has not been the improvement in our standing that we were hoping to see.

So, we need a new economic strategy because the old one has failed us, and, if we continue doing what we’ve done, of course, then we shouldn’t be surprised, as we know, if we end up with the same results. So, ‘Where have we gone wrong?’ I think is a good starting point. I think that there are some clues there in some of the data. If we look at issues like entrepreneurship, for example, in the early years of the Welsh Government, to be fair, there was the publication of a national entrepreneurship action plan. I know because I was a little bit involved in the drafting of it at the time. That actually did begin to have some early success, if you look at the figures, in terms of new starts for businesses. During the period 2002 to 2005, you saw a 21 per cent increase in new starts for business in Wales, compared to just a 13 per cent increase in the UK. That wasn’t replicated, of course. There was a change in the political weather or the policy weather around the middle of that decade, and so, from 2005 onwards, we saw a reduction or a return to a fall in terms of the business numbers.

There was an attempt with the economic strategy in 2010 to actually arrest that decline, and that economic strategy was quite clear that we needed to shift the emphasis back into indigenous capacity, where we’d started in 2000 in terms of the entrepreneurship action plan. Unfortunately, that economic strategy in 2010 was binned, effectively. There was a reversion to the old-style thinking, which has been this over-obsession with foreign direct investment, which may give you some short-term gain in terms of a press release and some job numbers. It may, actually, in difficult times—. And we realise that, in the economic crisis, we were in defensive mode. So, in the short term there can be reasons why you want to emphasise it, but in terms of the long-term task of changing the underlying trend of the Welsh economy, then we need to return to that thinking at the heart of the national entrepreneurship action plan, which is investing in indigenous enterprise and innovation, because it’s the skills, knowledge and ideas of our own people that will ultimately deliver to us the economic improvement that we want to see.

I’d like to thank the Welsh Conservatives for bringing forward this motion today. The Welsh Government’s national strategy aims to improve the health and well-being of Wales. Like the Welsh Conservatives, I am disappointed there are no clear, measurable targets for the health service. I welcome the ambition behind the Welsh Government’s strategy, but without clear, measurable outcomes, we are in danger of having yet another ambitious strategy that fails to deliver.

I also welcome the fact that the strategy highlights the need for a seamless experience when it comes to health and care. At the moment, this is sadly lacking. I am, as I have stated last week, dealing with an 83-year-old constituent who was left to fend for himself following a triple heart bypass. He was discharged from hospital without any care package from social services being in place. A frail elderly gentleman, totally abandoned and let down by the statutory services. There was no-one to ensure that even his most basic needs were met, and without friends and former work colleagues, this man would have been without food and drink, unable to collect his pension and unable to pay his bills. This should not be happening in 2017. This man should not have had to phone around begging for help. The system did let him down.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case, and we have seen examples across Wales of people let down by the health and social care system. In the cross-party group on dementia yesterday, people with dementia and those caring for people with dementia outlined the difficulty in getting support and respite care. The Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 was supposed to address these shortcomings, but we have 22 local authorities, all interpreting the Act differently. Despite being entitled to a carer’s assessment, many carers have not had one, despite repeatedly asking for this assessment. We heard that some social services departments simply ask, in front of the person being cared for, if the carer is coping. Of course, the carer is going to say they are coping in those circumstances. This merely highlights the issue with the strategies: the ambitious plans don’t always get delivered.

Time and time again we have seen enormous variation in delivery of health and social care from area to area—some good, some not so good. Services vary between the seven local health boards and the 22 local authorities. How can we be sure that this strategy will be any different, as there are no targets and no measurable outcomes? How can we possibly hope to deliver equitable healthcare to every person in Wales, regardless of where they live, irrespective of their age or gender, if we are to have seven different health boards and 22 social services departments all delivering and interpreting health and care differently?

We are supposed to have a national health service, but in reality, the quality of your care depends upon your postcode. If the Welsh Government truly wish to improve health and well-being in Wales to achieve prosperity for all, they will have to do better than this strategy. The people of Wales deserve much better than warm words. They’ve had those for the last 18 years. It’s time for action and, unfortunately, the national strategy promises more of the same. Thank you. Diolch yn fawr.

I’m pleased to take part in this debate this afternoon, and I intend to focus my contribution on what, in my view, needs to be done to ensure prosperity for all the people in my constituency.

The Government’s ‘Prosperity for All’ document plans to target interventions to the different economic needs of each region of Wales, ensuring that all parts of the country benefit from growth, and I hope that the Welsh Government will honour that commitment and start seriously investing in west Wales, which, until now, seems to be at the bottom of the Welsh Government’s priority list. Of course, it’s great that the Welsh Government has recognised that there are distinct challenges facing different parts of Wales, but for people living in Pembrokeshire, the continued lack of investment in the area shows that, whilst Government strategies and documents say one thing, Government policies say another. I’m sure that all Members understand that a one-size-fits-all approach to governing Wales just doesn’t work, and that’s why the Welsh Government now needs to develop a detailed and robust strategy that explains how rural Wales will be supported through this Assembly.

For example, the ‘healthy and active’ section of the ‘Prosperity for All’ document doesn’t even reference rural health services at all. The Welsh NHS and the provision of services continues to be the single most important issue that my constituents face, and yet this document doesn’t even recognise or even try to reassure people living in my area that the Welsh Government is listening.

The strategy talks of the importance of rapid treatment for people when they need it, as close to home as possible, and that’s something that the people of Pembrokeshire continue to fight for. However, the continued removal of health services away from families in Pembrokeshire is completely at odds with the Welsh Government’s own objective to deliver services as close to home as possible. You only have to look at the situation surrounding paediatric services in west Wales as an example of people having to travel further afield for treatment.

When the Welsh Government decided to close the special care baby unit at Withybush hospital, I made the point that travelling from St Davids to Carmarthen in an emergency situation is similar to people in Cardiff being forced to travel to Nevill Hall Hospital in Abergavenny for emergency care. Now, of course, that would not be right for the people of Cardiff, and it’s not right for the people that I represent. Therefore, if the Welsh Government is seriously committed to delivering care as close to home as possible, then it’s time it started to reverse the centralisation of health services in west Wales and start to deliver proper investment in local health services.

The ‘Prosperity for All’ document doesn’t just focus on health objectives. It also reiterates some important infrastructure investments, including one commitment that will be of huge benefit to people and businesses in Pembrokeshire. I’m pleased that the document commits to enhancements to the A40 in west Wales, and I’m sure I don’t need to keep rehearsing the same lines in support of these enhancements other than to emphasise the fact that dualling the A40 is now needed to open west Wales up to the rest of the country and beyond. The case for dualling the A40 has been talked about since the 1950s, and so it’s high time that this project starts progressing. I hope that the First Minister shares my ambition to see the A40 in Pembrokeshire dualled, and I appreciate that that can’t happen overnight, and it will take significant funding, but all I’m asking now is for a firm commitment from the Welsh Government that it shares my objective to dual this stretch of road, and perhaps the First Minister will give this commitment when he responds to this particular debate.

I’m also pleased that the document commits to delivering fast, reliable broadband to those parts of Wales not currently served by the market. Again, Pembrokeshire falls into that category. We know how important access to the internet is, not just for businesses, but to everyone. For many people, it’s an increasingly important part of their lives and enables them to live much more independently by giving them access to information, education and good, reliable services. Indeed, in rural communities like Pembrokeshire that have already been hit disproportionately by bank closures, access to a fast, reliable broadband is essential for many people to be able to continue to have access to banking services. However, the reality for some people living in Wales is that they still don’t have access to an adequate broadband service and, as a result, they can’t enjoy or utilise the access to services that those in other areas do. Therefore, I again ask for more detailed information about when the Welsh Government will be specifically targeting notspots across Pembrokeshire, so that I can give local communities a much-needed update on when they can expect to see improvements.

So, in closing, Deputy Presiding Officer, the Welsh Government quite rightly states that there is much to be proud of, but many challenges remain, and it is only by being honest about these that we can tackle them. It’s time to be honest about the lack of investment and attention given to west Wales by previous Labour Governments and recognise that more must be done in the future to help our rural communities. Rural Wales can be so much more than it currently is. It just needs support and investment, and the people living in rural communities need to know that they are being considered by Welsh Government policies. So, I hope that the Welsh Government starts improving its support for west Wales. Therefore, I urge Members to support this motion.

This ‘Prosperity for All’ strategy represents another attempt to relaunch this tired, directionless and not-successful Labour Government in Wales. The fact is that, although the aims of this document are laudable, it is sadly lacking in details. Without the details on matters of delivery and measurement of outcomes, these commitments are simply ambitions. Welsh Labour has been in power in this place for over 18 years, and Labour has let west Wales down all the way since then.

Nowhere has there been more abject failure than in the education system in this country. After 18 years in office, successive generations have been let down by the Welsh Government’s complacency on education. Our children deserve a first-class education system here, but the PISA rankings show that Welsh Labour has relegated Wales to the bottom half of the global education league table. Wales has the worst performing school system in the United Kingdom. This year’s GCSE A to C pass rate was the lowest since 2006. The Future Generations Commissioner for Wales said recently that nearly 45 per cent of school leavers in Wales will not have five good GCSEs between 2015 and 2020. It’s not me; it’s the commissioner for future generations.

We face a crisis in teachers’ training and their retention. Thirty-eight per cent of secondary school teacher training places remain unfilled. A significant number of teachers who are already actively teaching are considering leaving the profession. Deputy Presiding Officer, Wales desperately needs a strategy to bring new teachers to the country and to retain those whom we already have. On higher education, Wales has seen declining participation in part-time learning at higher education institutions. Between 2009 and 2014, student numbers dropped by 11 per cent in Wales. This decline has been aggravated by sustained Welsh Government cuts to higher education budgets. Allocated public funding for Welsh universities has been cut by nearly £36 million since 2015-16. Further education has fared no better. The Wales Audit Office has highlighted the fact that the grant funding in this sector has reduced by 13 per cent in real terms between 2011-12 and 2016-17.

Deputy Presiding Officer, we need more clarity on how the Welsh Government will address the skills gap in Wales. According to the CBI, 61 per cent of Welsh businesses fear they will not be able to recruit enough high-skilled workers to meet demand and to grow in Wales. Despite increases in employment levels, economic activity rates in Wales continue to illustrate the extent of the low-skilled workforce and poor educational attainment. The Welsh Government pledges to deliver 100,000 all-age apprenticeships and to use them to raise the overall level of skills in the workplace. But, they have not provided a framework within which they will deliver this pledge, or how they intend to do so.

Adult community learning can play a key role in improving the quality of life of Welsh citizens. However, provision has contracted across Wales, and in some areas severely eroded. The Welsh Government community learning grant, used as direct ACL grant funding, has fallen. Adult community learning can play a key role in improving the quality of life of Welsh citizens if properly supported.

Deputy Presiding Officer, the lack of measureable outcomes in this document undermines the likelihood of these objectives being achieved. Unless the Welsh Government addresses these issues, it will suffer the same fate as it has on Objective 1 funding and Communities First areas. It will fail to deliver, and I’m sure they’ll reconsider again to make more improvements in this whole scenario. Thank you.

Only yesterday here we spoke about the importance of open data collection, and recording useful data to inform and develop strong policies. So, how bizarre is it, then, that this strategy is so lacking in measurable targets, giving such little allowance for Assembly or public scrutiny. We are sixteen months into the fifth Assembly term, and the people of Wales are quite right to be questioning why a party that has been in power for over 18 years is unable to establish and work to coherent, clear and, again, measurable goals for delivery. Local authorities do it all the time. Where are they in this document?

Maybe this Welsh Labour Government is dissuaded from drawing attention to their record on the economy, business, housing, health, education, infrastructure, rural communities, because they have so consistently failed in those areas. Health and social services—we know that, in their current form, health and social services in Wales will not be sustainable in the near future. Health boards in Wales are facing significant deficits, overspending by £149 million this year alone. Since 2013 there has been a 400 per cent rise in the number of patients waiting over a year for surgery, yet the Welsh Government reduced funding for health and social care by 8.2 per cent in real terms between 2009-10 and 2015-16, exacerbating the pressures on the service, whilst the Health Foundation estimates that health spending in Wales will need to rise by 3.2 per cent per year in real terms to bridge the projected funding gap.

Can you tell us what representations to the UK Westminster Government to improve the funding to the Welsh Government?

I would say that’s a job, actually, for the First Minister, and for your party. [Interruption.]

Housing waiting lists in Wales are a national embarrassment, with 90,000 people currently on a housing list in Wales, the same figure as in 2011. Even more worrying, 8,000 families in Wales have been on an affordable housing waiting list for more than six years, and a further 2,000 have been on the waiting list since 2006. Homelessness in Wales is a further scandal. [Interruption.] During 2016-17, 9,210 households in Wales—

Can we all settle down, please?

[Continues.]—were assessed as facing homelessness within 56 days, increased by 29 per cent of households, temporary and bed-and-breakfast accommodation by 75 per cent—[Interruption.]

Can we all settle down, please?

Thank you. You might not like these facts, these figures, these stats, but they are true. We know we have 23,000 empty properties in Wales. Conwy alone has over 1,500. Yet the ‘Prosperity for All’ document doesn’t even mention this. This is a national resource, the use of which is a no-brainer.

On infrastructure and transport, seamless infrastructure is key to economic growth in Wales. However, the rate at which infrastructure is being delivered in Wales is a national embarrassment. We continue to see chronically poor broadband coverage in rural areas, with over 94,000—that’s three in 10 properties—unable to obtain a connection of over 10 Mbps. The number of registered bus services in Wales dropped from 1,943 in March 2005 to 1,283, leaving many of our rural communities and our residents facing increased isolation. The Enterprise and Business Committee stated last year that the Welsh Government’s response to a report on community transport in 2013 was disappointingly slow, despite the Welsh Government pilot project, Go Cymru, being completed in April of that year. Community transport is an essential service for older people and rural communities, enabling many to get out and about and reach vital services that they would otherwise struggle to access.

Deputy Llywydd, this document does little to reassure the people of Wales that Welsh Labour are making a targeted effort to work for them. I believe that this document will go exactly where the programme for government is—it will just go on a shelf, gathering dust. There are no deliverable or measurable targets. There are no outcomes. This Government is failing the people of Wales. You are failing the people of Aberconwy as well. [Interruption.] I rest my case.

I call on the First Minister, Carwyn Jones.

Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. There were a number of points that speakers raised that are important points that need to be addressed, and the challenges need to be recognised. The first thing that I have to say, of course, is that the document, ‘Prosperity for All’, is the basis on which Government decisions will be made. It will lead to more detail in due course. The economic action plan will be published by Christmas this year, if I can make that absolutely clear, and then, of course, we will be able to show what we are doing to further improve the lives of the people of Wales.

I have to say, there was an air of unreality, wasn’t there, around the Conservatives’ contributions? The Welsh budget has been cut by more than £1 billion. Yet, in the land of the Welsh Conservatives, the magic money tree sits and we’re able to spend as much money as we want. I accept that they are so inept that Janet Finch-Saunders has said that I have to take on board the issue of dealing with the UK Government, which I will do because they clearly cannot.

Where is the £1.67 billion that Northern Ireland had, breaching the Barnett formula? Not a peep from the Welsh Conservatives. [Interruption.] Not a peep from the Welsh Conservatives. So, yes, somebody has to speak for Wales. We know that it’s not the Welsh Conservatives.

I listened carefully to what Janet Finch-Saunders had to say about homelessness, but you cannot end homelessness by selling off public housing, which is exactly what they want to do. Their solution to homelessness is to sell off more houses to make people more homeless, and it ignores the effect of the bedroom tax on people. It ignores what’s happened with universal credit. I was in Brighton on the weekend, I know that they saw me there, I have never seen such homelessness. It struck me in Brighton that weekend how bad things were in Brighton and how many homeless people there were there, and that is as a result of policies pursued by her party.

I applaud her brass neck. She stands up and she talks about infrastructure. It was her party that scrapped electrification between Cardiff and Swansea. It’s her party that refuses to electrify the line along the north Wales coast. These are not devolved issues, they’re in the hands of the UK Government. Wales has 11 per cent of the railway track of England and Wales and it has 1.5 per cent of the investment. That is the reality of what the Tories do for Wales.

And where is the tidal lagoon? We said this yesterday: if you want to make a real difference to the lives of many people and improve the Welsh economy and create clean, green energy, we need to see the tidal lagoon move ahead. Why don’t you tell your colleagues this, rather than relying on me to do it? I’m happy to do it for you, but you clearly need lessons in how to influence your own party.

I listened carefully to what Paul Davies said. I don’t accept that rural Wales is forgotten, far from it. It’s hugely important that we deliver healthcare as close to people’s homes as possible. What I can never accept is that healthcare has to be in a position where it’s either local or better. People deserve access to the best healthcare wherever they live in Wales. That’s it from my perspective. If it can be delivered as locally as possible, fine. That’s exactly how it should be. But if people have to travel a little further to get better treatment with better outcomes, then that is something I don’t think we should be afraid of.

On the A40—we want to move ahead, of course, with the dualling of the A40. We recognise how important that is to his constituency. On broadband notspots, it’s difficult to give a timescale for particular communities. If he writes to me, I’d be more than happy to provide him with timescales for particular communities. He says there’s no investment at all. Well, look at the schools that have been built in the whole of the west of Wales. New schools being built, the reopening of Fishguard and Goodwick town station, for example, and better rail links into north Pembrokeshire—it’s not even devolved. It’s not even devolved and it’s something that we’ve spent money on in order to improve the lives of his own constituents.

Some of the other issues that have been raised, if I can deal with them in the time that I have: in terms of the economy, we know that unemployment now is routinely at the level of or lower than the UK average. That would have been unheard of back in the 1990s. We know that employment rates are higher than they were in the 1990s. We also know that GDP has gone up, but it has not increased by the same rate as some other parts of the UK. That much is true. Why? One of the reasons, of course, is we need to make sure that we continue to invest in skills. As people have more skills, so they can get better-paid jobs, so they can put more money into their pockets. That’s exactly what we’re doing. We have a commitment to have a 100,000 all-age apprenticeships that will give people the skills they need to earn more money but also enable us to answer the question that we always get from investors: ‘Have you got the skills we need to prosper in your country?’ Increasingly, we can say ‘yes’. They don’t come to Wales because of the money—Aston Martin made that clear—they come to Wales because the skills are here.

Two figures I put to you—and I identified that you said you’ve got the skills, or ‘We’ve got the skills here in Wales’—one was on GVA, and nationally, we only contribute 3 per cent of the wealth of the UK but we have 5 per cent of the population. On take-home pay, Scotland and Wales had parity 20 years ago; there’s now a £43 difference per week. So, where will Wales be in 2021 on national GVA in relation to the UK and where will it be on take-home pay if, as you’re identifying, we’ve got the skills the industry needs?

Better, because we’re attracting investors now that we would never have attracted 20 years ago. The policy of the UK Government in the 1990s was to replace well-paid jobs in coal and steel with badly paid, unskilled jobs. So, GDP and GVA—same thing, more or less—went down. Yes, the unemployment rate may have gone down with it, but the money that people had in their pockets also declined as a result. That is turning around; it’s been difficult to turn it around, I grant you, but it’s turning around now and we’re seeing investors coming into Wales and bringing better-paid jobs with them—jobs we would never have had 20 years ago because nobody would have been there to advocate Wales’s position 20 years ago.

In terms of the economy, turning to what Adam Price said, I don’t accept that there’s a choice to be made between supporting indigenous business and foreign direct investment. I accept there’s a balance to be struck. We’re seeing now more businesses in Wales, we’re seeing businesses becoming more successful. I see the entrepreneurial streak that was there in our young people being encouraged now in a way that wasn’t there before. I see our universities working to help start-up businesses in a way they didn’t do 10 years ago; they didn’t see it as their mission to do that. Now, they’re beginning to do that. So, I see that entrepreneurship being able to flourish as a result of it. [Interruption.] Of course.

Would he accept, perhaps, that the decision made in the last administration to increase the number of priority sectors from six to nine, which actually then covered two thirds of all businesses in the economy, was a mistake, because that doesn’t really sound like targeting as anyone would understand it?

No, there were too few sectors. One of the problems we faced was—and it was an issue I remember discussing with my former colleague Ieuan Wyn Jones, as Deputy First Minister—that in years before that, attempts had been made to attract investment in any area and, of course, you can’t do that. Unless you can show you’ve got a track record quite often it’s very difficult to attract another investor in the same field into your country. So, the decision was taken to have sectors. Yes, we increased that to nine because we saw new sectors appear over the years and sectors becoming stronger over the years. The issue that we need to focus on as well is the issue of regional disparity. That’s been raised and it’s a fair point to raise. How do we do that? Well, we need to make sure that we have regional economic plans and also regional delivery structures. We don’t have them at the moment.

If we’re going to talk about devolving powers downwards, perhaps financial powers as well, which, you know, is an idea that deserves careful attention, we have to be clear that the regional delivery structures are there; they are not there. The local government Bill will give us the opportunity to do that. It’s not possible for 22 local authorities to be able to deliver effectively on their own. That’s why, of course, we need the regional collaboration. That’s what the Bill will do. And that, of course, gives us the opportunity, then, to start looking at how we can empower other levels of government to be able to improve economic conditions in their own areas.

With regard to health, again, the leader of the opposition says, ‘Well, everything’s gone backwards’—it hasn’t. I mean, diagnostics waiting times have improved, ambulance waiting times have improved. If you look at cancer, if you want cancer treatment in Wales, you are at least as likely to be getting good cancer treatment as quickly as anywhere else in the UK, if not better. The reality of the situation is we spend 7 per cent more on health and social care: it’s a figure that we’ve used in this Chamber—it is true. And we know, of course, that when it comes to recruitment, the campaign we’ve put in place is bearing fruit. We are seeing training places now being filled in a way that wasn’t the case, perhaps, a year or two ago. That will strengthen the health service over the next few years here in Wales.

In terms of some of the other issues that were raised in the course of the debate—education: well, I have to say, you know, I heard what Mohammed Asghar said. I was in school in the 1980s, in a comprehensive, and I can tell him now, I remember those days when schools were never built, they were never maintained, we had a Conservative Government cutting over and over and over again the education budget, we had performance levels going down; I never want to see those days again. I’m happy to take him to schools all round Wales that are brand new being built. I’m happy to show him the work that’s been put in. I’d like to show him the work that’s coming through via the leadership academy. I’d like to show him the consortia that are delivering now. The reality of the case was that we did not have consistent delivery of education across all local authorities: six of them were in special measures at one point. The system didn’t work consistently across Wales. Yes, we had some excellent examples of delivery, but there weren’t enough of them across Wales. Now we have the consortia, we are seeing improvements—best GCSE results we’ve ever had. If you compare where GCSE results were in the 1990s—

Are you taking an intervention?

[Continues.]—they were far, far lower when it came to A* to C grades than they are now. It’s a tribute to our teachers and to our pupils.

You told us last week about the best ever GCSE grades, but, of course, with respect to the results from this summer, the overall pass rates were at their lowest level for a decade.

No. If you look—. [Interruption.] If you compare the figures on a like-by-like basis, they’re clearly not. If you compare them with the days before 1999 when around about 38 per cent of Welsh pupils got five A* to C grades, that figure is now well beyond that—well beyond that—and that’s a result of what we have done in terms of education delivery. So, no, what we are seeing in education is better delivery, we’re seeing better results. If you look at A-levels, for example, in A-levels we are often—not that it should be a competition, but people compare us—better than England in many, many subjects and that’s as a result of the work that’s been put in by the current education Secretary, of course, building on the work that’s gone on in previous years.

So, I think we need to be positive about our country. We deliver against a background of extreme austerity. We know that there are still £3.5 billion-worth of cuts across the UK that are not yet even allocated by the current UK Government. We don’t know where those cuts will lie. And so, yes, we’d like to deliver more—we’d like to do the things that the Conservatives call upon us to do, even though we haven’t got the money to do it. We’d like to hear more from the Conservatives about what their ideas are. One thing I noticed in the speeches was that they criticised, which is their right; not one positive idea was put forward as to what they’d do differently—not one. So, they are still in the position where they’re unable to offer the people of Wales anything, unable to offer the people of Wales a positive way forward, unable to offer the people of Wales any kind of hope for the future. We will continue to do that, the people of Wales understand that, that’s why we saw the result that we did in June, and that’s why, of course, we’ll continue to work for the people of Wales. We will join with others who want to work with us in delivering the best future for our country, based on fairness, on justice, on opportunity and on prosperity for all. [Interruption.]

Thank you. And just to say that I decided because there were three interventions, and if you’ve got anything to say, well, wait to see who’s winding up your debate before you start criticising. Nick Ramsay.

What’s that supposed to mean? [Laughter.] Thank you for that warm introduction. [Laughter.] I’ve had worse. [Laughter.] Could I first of all just start by thanking everyone who contributed to today’s debate this afternoon? I’ve got to say, I did particularly enjoy the response of the First Minister, a response mainly directed at Janet Finch-Saunders—well, for the first five minutes of his contribution anyway. To be fair, First Minister, you did then turn to Paul Davies and the problems of rural Wales.

But I have to say it is a bit rich to lay all of Wales’s woes at the door of the Welsh Conservative party and the Welsh Conservative group. In case you haven’t noticed, we haven’t been in power here for the last 18 years. In fact, let me think who has. Who could it be? Ah, of course, it’s the Labour Party, the Welsh Labour Party that have been in power. But I have to say things—. [Interruption.] And I have to say—. [Interruption.] In a moment. And I have to say, Mike Hedges, things didn’t get much better when Labour was in power in Westminster either for over 10 years, and we had a Labour Party in Westminster in power and a Labour Government here. Did GVA suddenly spiral up through the roof? Did it suddenly improve? Did we get electrification of the Great Western line? Did we get the tidal lagoon? All these wonderful things that apparently the Welsh Conservatives have not delivered. Well, actually, electrification is happening. Actually, a lot of these happening are in the process and far more than they were in the pipeline when Labour were in power in Westminster. And if the Welsh Government here wants to work with the UK Conservative Government to help deliver these projects, then we welcome that and we believe in being positive. And, you know, you might say that this has been a negative debate. Well, the reason why there’s been a lot of negativity is that we’ve been following a document that didn’t actually have a great deal in it.

I think it was Caroline Jones who spoke about warm words. And, yes, we have heard lots of warm words here in this Chamber over the last 20 years. We’ve marked the twentieth anniversary of devolution over the last couple of weeks. We have had lots of warm words and lots of strategies. And Adam Price said—. Wales isn’t suffering from a lack of strategies, is it, Adam? I think we’ve had so many strategies—more than we can count—and too many of them either haven’t been followed through, haven’t been enacted or, as Janet Finch-Saunders said, have just ended up being dumped, left on a dusty shelf somewhere not to be followed through. So, I think we do need you to get in perspective exactly why we’re in the situation we are.

Will the Member give way?

Have I got time to give way briefly to Mike Hedges?

You have time to give way briefly, yes.

Can I just say that the reason the tidal lagoon wasn’t brought in by a Labour Government is that it hadn’t been thought about back in the time of the Labour Government? But the real problem with suffering in Wales is Tory austerity from Westminster. Don’t you agree with that?

I seem to remember a lot of time being spent by certain members of the last Labour UK Government on a tidal barrage, and certainly there were people talking about tidal lagoons back at that time. But, nonetheless, we are where we are; we have to move forward. Our debate today is simply noting that the Welsh Government’s national strategy, ‘Prosperity for All’, is with us. I notice that the Welsh Government are supporting that. That’s progress. However, we do expect to see more specific measurable targets. It’s not a case any more of simply having warm words. If the next 20 years of devolution are going to be more successful in delivering on the economy, delivering on the health service, delivering on education, delivering across the range on public services for the people of Wales, then we have to do, all of us, a lot, lot better than we have done over the last 20 years. I urge people to support this motion and make a start.

Thank you very much. The proposal is to agree the motion without amendment. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Therefore, we defer voting under this item until voting time.

Voting deferred until voting time.

So, unless three Members wish for the bell to be rung, I will proceed directly to voting time.