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

Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, homelessness is a blight on any civilised society. Have you noticed that the number of rough sleepers is currently increasing?

The number of rough sleepers, according to the last count, is 141. That count took place in November of 2016. It’s difficult, of course, to count the number on a regular basis because it does fluctuate up and down, but she is right to identify the fact that rough sleeping is an issue, which is why—the Secretary will be giving his statement on the budget later—we will be looking to provide all the resource that we can in order to alleviate the problem.

Homelessness is on the increase, First Minister, and that’s from rough sleeping counts, applications for homelessness support, people in temporary accommodation, evictions—the lot. Here in Cardiff, The Wallich estimates that there’s been an 18 per cent increase in rough sleeping compared to the same quarter in 2016. It comes as no surprise, to us at least, that this is happening. Everyone predicted that this would happen as a result of welfare cuts, which, I remind you, started under the Blair Government when Lord Freud was given his first ministerial job. But it was also predictable that Westminster’s dysfunctional political system would ignore these warnings and go ahead with their cuts anyway. Why wasn’t your Government and your party more proactive in seeking the powers to not have to implement these cuts?

Well, it’s one thing to have the powers, it’s another thing to have the money. It’s one thing to say, ‘We’re going to do something’; if the money isn’t there to do it, then it becomes more difficult. What have we done? Well, we’ve just announced an additional £2.6 million to support services for rough sleepers and young people, and crucially we’ve introduced legislation to prevent homelessness in the first place. Dealing with people who are already on the street is important, but surely it must be the case as well that prevention is a priority for us. The legislation has meant more help for more people and help at an earlier stage, including rough sleepers, and the latest homelessness statistics for the first quarter of this financial year show a steady rate of success in times of increasing demand—63 per cent of all households threatened with homelessness had their homelessness prevented in Wales. That would not have happened anywhere else, and that’s as a result of the legislation.

First Minister, you can’t condemn Westminster for callousness while still accepting that the powers to prevent homelessness remain in Westminster. You’re right—you have recently reformed the homelessness system to adopt a more preventative approach, but clearly there remain a great number of people who have fallen through the very wide holes in your safety net. Now, if you accept that we are facing a homelessness crisis—and I’d be very surprised to hear you deny that we are facing a crisis—will you commit to abolishing the Pereira test to get rid of homelessness intentionality, ending priority need, so that everyone is entitled to a home?

The legislation has gone some way to addressing that. She and I are in a different position. I don’t believe that it makes sense to devolve welfare because we know that Wales is a net recipient of the overall pot. I do agree with her that the actions of the Tory Government have been heartless, unthinking, and have led to more people being homeless. I was in Brighton last week and it was extremely noticeable how bad the problem was in Brighton. We have a problem in Wales, we know that. It was far worse there. I believe part of that is because, in England, they have not enacted legislation that would help to prevent homelessness in the first place. The answer to this, of course, is to have a welfare system that works for people, a welfare system that is compassionate, and a welfare system administered by a Labour Government in London.

The leader of the opposition, Andrew R.T. Davies.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. First Minister, recently the Cabinet Secretary for Education delivered a speech that highlighted that there were secondary schools in Wales that until recently had not been entering a single pupil for a GCSE science exam—not a single pupil in secondary schools in Wales. Also, there had been a tendency for many schools to enter pupils for the easier BTEC courses, where, in 2016, there was a 99 per cent pass rate. Estyn, in a recent report, have highlighted the difficulties that some science subjects face in the way they’re taught within Welsh schools. Don’t you think it is vital, if we are going to be aspirational about delivering a high-wage economy, a skilled economy, that we have more pupils entered in the sciences? And, what confidence can you give that, in the PISA examinations in 2018, we will see real improvement in the sciences? We’ve gone back by 20, from 505 to 485, from 2006 to 2016. It has to be a key area of improvement. Yet, on your watch, we’ve got schools that haven’t been entering pupils for science at all.

First of all, we have for some time in Wales been emphasising the need to create parity of esteem between the academic and the vocational. Therefore, we should not make negative comparisons between BTECs and GCSEs. One is a vocational qualification; the other is more of an academic qualification. Schools will enter candidates for the appropriate exam according to what they feel they need, in terms of their future skills.

He asks about PISA. Well, we’ve seen GCSE results improve year after year—that is a good sign as far as PISA is concerned. We’ve seen improvements in subjects at A-level—that’s a good indication that PISA will improve in the future. We have, of course, new exams—we’ve made sure that they have been rolled out without great difficulty. We’ve taken the decision to postpone the introduction of the curriculum—that’s the right decision, and we know that teachers and professionals have supported that. And, of course, we are building schools all around Wales—schools that would not be built if he were in my position.

First Minister, that was a pathetic answer. On your watch—[Interruption.] On your watch—[Interruption.] On your watch, we have had secondary schools in Wales—. And these aren’t my comments, because we can’t get the data—we’ve applied to the Welsh Government to have the data that the Cabinet Secretary based her speech on. Here’s the speech—. The speech is here; it’s her remarks, not my remarks, that say how shameful it has been that, under your Government, we have had secondary schools not entering a single—a single—student for science GCSEs—not A-levels, GCSEs. How on earth can you defend that when you’ve been First Minister for seven years? These are the remarks of your Cabinet Secretary, not mine, so how can we have confidence that we will see the improvements we need in science, technology, engineering and mathematics when we’ve had such a laissez-faire attitude from your Government?

That was a response worthy of the Secretary of State for Wales—and that’s not a compliment, by the way. The reality is that the system has been changed. We’ve just introduced, of course, the new GCSEs; that has happened. So, far from sitting back and doing nothing, we’re encouraging schools to enter pupils for GCSEs and other qualifications, and at the right time—and at the right time—so they’re not entering them early in order to get them through a particular subject and the grades are coming down as a result. That is something that we have done as a Government. [Interruption.] Well, it’s unlike David Melding to be like this, but, clearly, something has caused him to be annoyed this morning, or this afternoon.

We’re confident in what we’re doing: we’re confident in what we’re doing in terms of changing the syllabus; we are confident in what we’re doing in terms of results—we see results improving, both at GCSE and A-level. We see money going into education in a way that’s been deprived from schools by his party in England. We see schools being built across Wales that would not be built by his party if they were in power here. And, of course, we want to make sure that as many of our pupils have as many opportunities as possible to enter examinations in order to get the qualifications that they need—that’s exactly what we’ve done in terms of the system we’ve now introduced.

First Minister, David Melding is most probably getting annoyed by your performance this afternoon, because it is a very laissez-faire attitude, I have to say. You can’t defend a system that has not—[Interruption.] You cannot defend a system that has not been entering GCSE students for the sciences, and then stand there and try to defend it. I want to have confidence, First Minister, that we will see improvement. I want to see improvement in the Welsh education system. We all want to see that. But we had in the last GCSEs the worst results for 10 years. We’ve got the PISA examinations coming forward now in 2018. I asked you in the first question: where are we going to be? Give us an indicator of where we’re going to be—just give us something to come out of this First Minister’s questions where we can mark your homework as to where science will be in 2018.

Science entries are up. We changed the system partially to encourage schools to enter more students, and enter them at the time that is appropriate for them. That has been done. He talks about the worst GCSE results for 10 years—I do not recognise that, if you compare like with like. If he thinks that things are rosy in England, I suggest he needs to look at what happened in England with the system there. And he makes that comparison from time to time. Look, we will make sure that the education system is properly financed according to the settlement we get from him and his Government. If he wants to see—[Interruption.] If he wants to see more money into education, can I suggest he actually lobbies—because he’s more effective than his parliamentary colleague—his colleagues in London to get more money into education across the UK and particularly to Wales? We could do a lot more with a fairer settlement. A £1 billion bung for Northern Ireland—not a word, not a word, from the party opposite; not a word. Let’s see Wales get the same fair play and let’s see whether the Welsh Conservatives can stand up against their colleagues in Westminster.

Leader of the UKIP group, Neil Hamilton.

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. This afternoon—[Interruption.] I knew that the Chamber was circular, Llywydd; I didn’t realise it revolved as well. This afternoon, we shall hear the outline budget from the finance Secretary, but his room for manoeuvre is obviously limited by the nature of the funding of the Welsh Government. Ninety-two per cent of the money that Welsh Government spends currently comes from the United Kingdom Government by block grant. So, the success of the Welsh economy and the ability of the Welsh Government to spend depends crucially upon the health of the UK economy, which, in turn, depends crucially upon the economic policies of the Government at Westminster. Does he think that the consequences for Wales of the kind of spending plans that Jeremy Corbyn outlined last week in Brighton would, in the long term, benefit the Welsh economy? They’ve been added up to about £312 billion. It must be one of the most expensive speeches in human history. That’s £4.15 billion per minute, £69.3 million per second. Such a speech programme would actually bankrupt the UK economy, and that can be nothing less than disastrous for Wales.

It has never been cheaper to borrow. In 1945, a Government came to power in the UK, presiding over a wrecked country and a wrecked economy, with far less money at its disposal. Yet it managed to create the national health service, managed to put industry back onto its feet. It managed to ensure that people’s standard of living began to rise. It dealt with a country that had been destroyed because of the effects of war. If they can do it, then a Labour Government can do it now. We’ve had seven years of austerity and nothing has changed for the better. It’s got worse and worse and worse. Seven wasted years: it’s time for a change.

I don’t want to debate economic history with the First Minister, but, immediately after the war, we did, of course, have the Marshall aid programme and actually there was a very substantial reduction in the proportion of debt to GDP during the course of the Attlee Government from 1945 to 1951. When Tony Blair came to office in 1997, the national debt stood at £359 billion and, in his first term of office, he actually reduced it further. In 2001, that was reduced to £317 billion. Then Gordon Brown turned on the spending taps, and we all know what happened with the financial crisis in 2008. The national debt—[Interruption.] The national debt now stands—[Interruption.] The national debt now stands at nearly £2 trillion and we’re spending, every single year, £56 billion on debt interest alone. If the Welsh portion of that debt interest, which would be one twentieth—that’s about £2 billion a year—was available to the Welsh Government to spend on the health service, social care, education, whatever, Wales would be very much better off than it is now.

All Governments have to borrow. Well, there are very few Governments that don’t have to borrow—usually those that are oil rich. The reality is you borrow to invest. What we’re seeing at the moment is a Government that is bumping the British economy off the ground. We know that, as far as injections of money are concerned, that’s not happening. The economy is not being stimulated. Now, he doesn’t want me to lecture him on economic history—I will, and recent economic history, which he will remember. Because he seemed to suggest that Gordon Brown was responsible for the world financial crash in 2008. The reality is the crash was caused by irresponsible banks selling financial products to people who they knew full well would not be able to repay them. Then they bundled those debts and sold them onto other banks, infecting the entire system. That’s what happened. We are still living with the consequences of that. It’s quite clear to me, then, that the old ways of doing things cannot be followed in the future. We need a Keynesian injection of cash into the economy in order to make sure that we create more employment, that we put more money in peoples’ pockets, and stimulate the economy in that way. Because it’s quite clear that, over the past seven years, what’s been done isn’t working.

You would think, from what the First Minister just said, that there hadn’t been a Labour Government from 1997 to 2008 and the Chancellor of the Exchequer was not Gordon Brown, in charge of banking regulation, whereas we know that he believed in a light-touch regulation of banking, so he was a contributor to the financial crisis, which ultimately engulfed him. Jim Callaghan knew what it was like to cope with a financial crisis. I’m sure the First Minister will remember very well that in 1976 he appeared at a rather different kind of Labour Party conference and said:

‘We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by…boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists, and in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion…by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step.’

Jeremy Corbyn, if he ever did learn that lesson, seems to have forgotten it. His role as a kind of moth-eaten Santa Claus, dipping into a bottomless bag of presents to dish out to gullible children, is not the way forward for any sensible or realistic political party that has any designs upon holding the highest offices in the land.

We have revealed to us this afternoon the UKIP strategy for dealing with appealing to young voters. ‘You are all gullible children’ is the way that they’re going to be described in the future, so I can’t see many of them voting UKIP in the future.

In the 1970s, there were particular challenges with stagflation, as he should remember, because of the soaring price of oil as a result of the 1973 oil crisis. That knocked the usual economic cycle out of sync and, as a result, we saw rising unemployment and rising inflation at the same time, meaning that the traditional way of injecting money into the economy to deal with high unemployment—[Interruption.] I can give the leader of the opposition a lecture on economic history, if he wants, as he knows less than nothing about it—[Interruption.] And so the circumstances of the 1970s are very, very different. But what I can say to him about 1976—. Here’s a statistic for him: 1976 was the time in history when Britain was most equal—when Britain was most equal. Since then, the Tories have made it more and more and more unequal, and that’s what a Labour Government will change.