Questions now from the party leaders. The leader of the UKIP group, Neil Hamilton.

Diolch yn fawr iawn, Llywydd. The Welsh Government and, indeed, the Labour Party generally have been very critical of zero-hours contracts, and also firms like Uber, who they say use their terms and conditions to exploit workers. Well, aren’t supply teachers in Wales often in the same situation? There’s a case that was quoted on the BBC website this week of Angela Sandles, who’s a qualified primary school teacher but, for the last six years, has also been a foster parent, and so has been a supply teacher. She says that, after deductions from the agency that she works for, she can be paid around the minimum wage. And some supply teachers are turning to pizza delivery to make ends meet, and supply teachers are voting with their feet and leaving and looking for alternative employment. Does the First Minister think that this is an acceptable situation?

No, but then this isn’t devolved yet. This is something that will come to us next year. We have a supply teaching working group, which is looking at ways to boost the employment prospects and, indeed, income of supply teachers, and that is exactly what we plan to take forward.

As the First Minister will probably know, supply teachers in England on average are paid about £130 a day, but in Cardiff that’s on average £90 to £95 a day, and in west Wales it’s as low as £80 a day. Agencies are charging schools above the rate for teachers on main scale 1-4, and teachers with 20 years’ experience, therefore, can be paid less than a newly qualified teacher who’s permanently employed. The Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure said recently in relation to Uber that people should be able to rely on a fair wage regardless of their line of work. I don’t think there’ll be any Member in this place that would disagree with that.

Well, it is a matter for the school, of course, because schools employ the supply teachers. In order to change to a situation where there is complete consistency in that regard then local management of schools would have to be removed from schools. In Northern Ireland, where there is no LMS, there’s far greater consistency in terms of supply teachers’ pay. This is an issue that hasn’t yet been devolved to us. The changing of the system away from LMS would require primary legislation, inevitably, and these are issues that Members will have to consider over the next few months. But, in the meantime, what we intend to do is use the working group that we’ve put together to improve the conditions of supply teachers, while at the same time considering the best outcome in the longer term.

Schools come under the regulation of local authorities—the responsibility of local authorities at any rate—and, of course, the Welsh Government is responsible for funding those schools and has great persuasive authority, even if it doesn’t have the legal authority. Amongst other deficiencies of the current situation for lots of agency teachers is they’ve got no access to the teachers’ pension scheme and, often, their holiday pay arrangements mean that part of the wages that they’re paid for doing their job are held back to them, to be handed back during the holidays as though that were holiday pay on top of their normal pay, which is quite wrong. The effect has been that, for public sector workers in general, who have had a pay cap for the last 10 years, supply teachers have done a good deal worse and many of them have had a pay cut in effect of up to 40 per cent in the last 15 years. Also, many of these supply contracts have a clause in them, which you have to accept or else you don’t get the job, saying, ‘I accept that I will not be paid according to agency worker regulations.’ Is the Welsh Government going to do something specific about these abuses?

These are issues that are being considered in advance of the devolution of pay and conditions. We know that schools—. He said that local authorities are responsible. Schools are responsible for employing their supply teachers and, of course, if schools wish to employ supply teachers in a different way, rather than going through agencies, then that will be open to them. But with this being devolved in the very near future, this now gives us the opportunity to deal with these issues, which I recognise because I’ve had constituents come in to explain this to me as well, in a way that wasn’t possible before in the absence of devolution.

Plaid Cymru leader, Leanne Wood.

Diolch, Llywydd. The First Secretary of State and Minister for the Cabinet Office, Damian Green, said yesterday, in terms of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, and I quote,

‘talk of a power-grab is…behind us.’

Do you agree with him?

We are not yet in a position—well, I’m not in the position—where I could recommend to this Assembly that we should support the withdrawal Bill. I did have a meeting with him and with the Secretary of State for Wales. I think it’s fair to say there was a better understanding of our determination not to support the Bill unless the power grab is addressed, and I think it’s fair to say that it was a better meeting than previous meetings. Perhaps the arithmetic in the House of Commons has been realised now by the UK Government, but we’re not in a position yet where we can recommend that the Bill should be supported. We now need to see action by the UK Government to make sure that that power grab is removed.

Well, it’s encouraging to hear that you had a more positive meeting, but Plaid Cymru still sees that there is a risk of a power grab in this Bill. Clause 11 of the Bill places restrictions on the devolved administrations on competence relating to EU law, although that’s not the only part of the Bill where we’ve got concerns, as you will be aware. The meeting between Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker last night was of crucial importance to Wales. Even more than the withdrawal Bill that I’ve mentioned, the terms of EU exit on trade is vital in terms of Welsh jobs. Last night though, there was no breakthrough. The admission that talks need to accelerate is, in my view, a sign of their failure so far. Will you acknowledge that leaving the EU without a deal is a real and, if that does happen, that it would be bad news for Welsh jobs, for Welsh farming and for Welsh trade?

It’s an exceptionally worrying prospect. As I’ve said before, no deal is the worst deal. To leave in chaotic circumstances would be bad for everybody. The concern that I have is that insufficient progress is made by March 2019 so that no deal becomes the default position. That is something that she and I are in exactly the same position in terms of saying that we would oppose that. It’s hugely important that there is a deal on the table that enables Welsh businesses to be able to access the single market on the same terms as now.

If you agree, First Minister, that leaving the EU without a deal is a real prospect and that it would be, indeed, bad news for Wales, then the next obvious question that I have for you is what it is you’re going to do about it. How is the Welsh Government preparing for every possible Brexit scenario? You’ll know that yesterday the Farmers’ Union of Wales indicated its support for staying in the single market and the customs union, and they said that the evidence supporting that position was incontrovertible. It’s only a matter of time now before other sectors follow them. Your Government said in July that businesses were more focused on the short term because there was so much uncertainty around that final deal. You could also not provide data as to how many businesses your Government had been in contact with regarding Brexit support. Can you now outline the concrete steps you are taking to prepare the Welsh economy for all possible Brexit scenarios, and will you accept that it is your duty to ensure that the Welsh economy does not sleepwalk into a dangerous economic crisis?

We have an EU exit working group that is working on different scenarios, but I have to say that no deal—there is no mitigation for no deal. There is nothing literally we can do in the short term if we find there’s no deal. In the longer term, it’s possible to look for new markets, but, in the timescale we’re talking about, it’s impossible. If we look at farming, particularly sheep—. Dairy farming is in a less vulnerable position, but sheep farming particularly—sheep farmers face a triple whammy, in effect, of (a) finding that what they produce is now 40 per cent more expensive in their main target market, (b) seeing a question mark over their subsidies post 2021, and (c) a potential free trade deal with another country with a large sheep meat industry like New Zealand, for example, that is then allowed to come into the UK without any restriction at all. In those circumstances, no matter how much subsidy can be made available for farmers, much of what they produce will not be sellable, and that’s why it’s hugely important that our sheep farmers, our manufacturers, are able to access the single market in the same way as they do now. It’s perfectly possible to leave the EU and yet still have access to the single market. Norway have done it; Norway is a European economic area country. Nigel Farage himself was using Norway as an example of what we could be, and, in that sense, if in little else, he’s right, because the last thing we want to see is no deal, because there’s no amount of preparation that can prepare the Welsh economy for what is bound to be bad news if we cannot access properly the market where we sell nearly two thirds of our goods.

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

Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. First Minister, why doesn’t the Welsh Government use economic intelligence, and, importantly, input and output tables, when creating policy and deciding where to support the Welsh economy?

We do.

I have to say you do not use economic intelligence or input or output tables. I haven’t been able to find an academic, a businessman or woman—there is no-one who can support what you’ve just said, First Minister. If you look at the Scottish model, they have a dedicated unit at the University of Strathclyde that they established some years ago that informs Scottish Government policy about the output of the economy, about job creation, and, above all, about the support that the economy in Scotland needs. I am concerned at the flippancy of your answer, in particular when you look at the challenges that the Welsh economy faces. Will you reconsider the answer that you’ve just given? Because I can tell you that what the Welsh economy needs—when developing new policy and support for the Welsh economy, it needs sound data, good information and an understanding of how the economy works. And I point again to your assertion that you say, ‘yes’, when, in fact, compared to what Scotland do, with a dedicated unit at Strathclyde university, you have nothing of a comparable nature.

First of all, the worst thing for the Welsh economy would be a chaotic Brexit; that’s the worst thing of all. We do have a chief economist who advises Government. We consult with businesses through bodies such as the Council for Economic Development, and in that way we have the intelligence that we need to take the Welsh economy forward. But he speaks as if we have nothing in terms of advice. We have a chief economist and a department that provides us with our advice.

First Minister, economic intelligence and input and output tables are well understood in the development of public policy the length and breadth of Governments around the world. It was a relatively straightforward question that I opened this series of questions with. When you look at the challenges that the Welsh economy faces—putting Brexit to one side—on automation, for example, which one of your backbenchers has highlighted time and time again in this Chamber, by 2025, we will lose 15 per cent of the jobs in the workplace as we understand them today. By 2035, we are set to lose 35 per cent of the jobs in the workplace as we understand them today; 2035 is only 18 years away. You have no ability—and I reiterate this—you have no ability to use the tools that other Governments use the length and breadth of the world and, in particular, in devolved contexts, such as Scotland. Will you commission a unit here in Wales to support the development of public policy on input and output policy for economic intelligence, First Minister?

Well, again, as I said, we have the bodies that have been set up to work with industry. Industry Wales is another example of that. We have a chief economist and other economists who can support what we are doing. We also have the Public Policy Institute for Wales, whose job it is to look at issues as they arise and provide us with advice. We do have that academic input into policy making. He seems to give the impression that, somehow, we have no economic data at all or advice that advises on what we need to do. That is not correct and, as we see from the fact that unemployment is at a low level and foreign direct investment is at a very high level, the information we’re getting is clearly right as far as the decisions we’re taking are concerned.