Questions now from the party leaders. The leader of the opposition, Andrew R.T. Davies.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. First Minister, tomorrow, there'll be a motion before the Assembly to ask the Assembly's permission to set up an inquiry by the Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister to scrutinise the allegations that have been made about the time in office of Leighton Andrews, and your special adviser, Steve Jones. I understand the leader of the house will respond to that debate tomorrow, which is quite right, because it's organising Assembly business. But I'm just working out in my own mind—I'm sure many other people are trying to work out in their own mind—why the Government has tabled a 'delete all' amendment to that motion, and why you have an objection to the Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister undertaking this piece of work, on what certainly is not a political point, I would suggest; it is merely trying to get to the bottom of the allegations that have been made.

Well, I take the view that an independent process is the best way of doing that, and that's why we've tabled the amendment that we have.

Well, surely, the Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister is an independent process. People sit on that committee and look objectively at the evidence that's given to the committee, and ultimately determine and provide a report based on that evidence. It was slightly alarming, from the Counsel General's interview on the Politics Show, that he questioned the ability of the Chair—as a Labour Chair—and Labour Members to actually be objective in their scrutiny. I believe that they will act with integrity and objectivity on the evidence that is provided by the witnesses that would come before them. I have the words here, which actually do say, 'the Labour Chair and AMs to act impartially on the subject', which I have stated is clearly not a political subject. [Interruption.] But those are the words—I've got them here in front of me—if, from a sedentary position, the Member wants to talk about them.

So, I do believe that they would act objectively, and I do think it is important for this institution that, if that vote is carried tomorrow, the Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister is allowed to undertake that work. Surely that's what that committee actually does. So, I do ask you again to enlarge why you have put that 'delete all' motion down that will prevent the very committee that is charged by this Assembly to scrutinise you and your office and the activities of you and your office while in Government?  

Well, he has been partial himself in the words that he has alleged the Counsel General used—that's the problem. The committee is there to scrutinise me as First Minister—of course it is—but I take the view, and I think reasonable people will take the view, that, where there is an issue such as this, an independent process is the right to process to deal with the issue. 

Well, it is really regrettable to see that you are not prepared to have confidence in the committees of this Assembly to actually do the work that they are charged with doing and actually listen to the evidence that is given. But, tomorrow, there is a motion and there is an amendment. So, whichever one carries, there will be an inquiry. Can you confirm that Government Ministers or Government Secretaries who will be giving evidence to either one of those investigations will be relieved of collective responsibility and they can speak as individuals when putting the evidence before the investigations? And, above all, I'm not sure how people will vote in this Chamber tomorrow, but it could well boil down to one vote. These allegations are levelled at you as First Minister, and the activities of the First Minister's office. Will you absent yourself from voting in that vote tomorrow, given that it is specifically dealing with allegations—and I level this—which need to either be proved or dismissed and are levelled at you as First Minister? Will you absent yourself from that vote? 

Well, I think, by his comments today, the leader of the opposition has shown that it's highly political what he's trying to do; it's nothing to do with it being impartial at all. I saw his comments over the weekend, when he said that he wants an investigation up to the present day, for no apparent reason. Also, he said that the committee should make recommendations about the running of the First Minister's office. It's not a matter for the committee as to how the Welsh Government is run in that way. I am not afraid of an independent process. I'm not afraid of an independent process. I'm not afraid of an independent adviser looking as to whether I've breached the ministerial code, because I'm confident that I have not. I am not afraid of an independent process. I don't know why he is so afraid of an independent process. 

The Plaid Cymru leader, Leanne Wood. 

Diolch, Llywydd.

First Minister, mental health and children's mental health is one of the biggest issues facing Wales at the moment and, on 27 September last year, you claimed that investment would drive down waiting times for child and adolescent mental health services. You said,

'The resources have been put in and I fully expect the waiting times and the numbers to go down as those resources work through the system.' 

Do you stand by that statement? 

Yes, I do. It is right to say, for example, with CAMHS, demand did outstrip what was available. There's no question about that and that's why we put the extra £8 million a year into children and adolescent mental health services in order to deal with that. If we look at the new funding that's been announced for mental health, on top of the general increases, £22 million of new funding has been targeted at improving access to a number of specific services: so, £8 million a year for older person's mental health; the £8 million I've mentioned for CAMHS; £3 million a year for psychological therapies for adult services; more than £0.5 million a year for community perinatal  services, and £1.5 million a year in local primary mental health support services to further support the Measure in 2012.  

Earlier this year, First Minister, StatsWales changed the way that waiting time numbers were being reported, removing the cases that were regarded as non-CAMHS pathways. This removed 1,700 children—some 74 per cent of the total—from the waiting list in one fell stroke. That makes historic comparisons impossible, but we do now have seven month's worth of new data, which means that we can see what has happened so far this year, and it's clear that waiting times for CAMHS are getting worse. Back in March, 87 per cent of children were waiting less than a month, and now it's 45 per cent. Back in March, no children were waiting longer than 16 weeks for that first appointment, and now one in five children are. That doesn't sound like a driving down of waiting times to me. You've previously argued that there are too many children being referred for specialist treatment. Do you still think that the problem with CAMHS is that too many children are being referred? 

Well, it is a fact that around 25 per cent to one third of referrals to specialist CAMHS are redirected to other services because the referral is inappropriate for what is a highly specialised service. Now, that's done to ensure that those children who require specialist support are able to receive it in a timely manner. Of course we expect CAMHS to deal with those young people who need help from CAMHS, but we also know that many of those young people who are directed to CAMHS in the first place aren't directed elsewhere to a service that is more appropriate for them.

Seventy-four per cent.

When confronted by a long-standing problem, First Minister, it looks like the response of your Government is to move the goalposts and to manipulate the data or to claim that not everyone really needed the service. Now, there are several other examples where, rather than improve services, you've moved the goalposts. It happened with the ambulance service, the number of full-time GPs in the NHS, and last week cancer targets were changed but we don't yet know what to. Yet you still reject Plaid Cymru's call for a 28-day diagnosis target set by the independent cancer task force.

Isn't it time we removed your Government's ability to avoid scrutiny by moving the goalposts? And isn't it time that Wales established an independent body for setting targets and publishing the data against those targets? What will it take, First Minister, for waiting times in CAMHS to be reduced so that children get the treatment that they need?

Well, it comes as a surprise to me, as I stand here every week, to suggest that I'm not scrutinised, because I can guarantee Members that certainly I am. Can I make the point that statistics are not changed by Government? They're dealt with independently, and it's up to the UK Statistics Authority to decide how it gathers statistics. It's not something Government decides. Yes, it is true to say, with the ambulance response times, for example, that that was changed, but that put it in a comparable position with England. That's one of the reasons why that was done.

When it comes to looking at cancer targets, these are issues that we look at to make them more effective. The issue I always have with the 28-day diagnosis is that specialists say to me that it's often not possible to do that because of the nature of somebody's cancer. People react in different ways and their diagnosis is done in different ways. I'm not a doctor; I'm just referring to what people have said to me.

Now, she makes the point about making sure that young people get the treatment that they need at the right time, and a priority of the Together for Children and Young People programme is to reduce inappropriate referrals, to examine the way in which specialist mental health services work with primary care and others in social services, education and youth justice and the third sector to ensure that young people do have timely access to appropriate help. But, of course, what is important is that young people, when they're referred, get the right level of service and don't just get defaulted to CAMHS. So, this is a holistic approach that we're taking, and we're confident, if we take into account as well the pilot projects that were announced in September for mental health support in schools, that we will then be able, of course, to ensure that more and more young people get the help and support that they need.

Leader of the UKIP group, Neil Hamilton.

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. The temperature in this Chamber may rise tomorrow, but I wonder if the First Minister's seen that the Met Office forecasts for outside show that we are likely to have sub-zero temperatures for the next week or two. I wonder if he also saw on Monday in The Guardian that there was a report saying that electricity and gas prices have risen in the last 20 years by three times the rate of inflation and the average household now spends £562 a year on heating and lighting. What it didn't say was that this is overwhelmingly due to the rise in green taxes, which will cost households almost £150 a year from next year, and they've risen by two thirds since 2014 and are now 20 per cent of the typical electricity bill. Considering that a quarter of the households in Wales live in fuel poverty, how can we justify loading these charges upon the poorest and most vulnerable in society?

This is a man who voted in favour of privatising electricity and gas. That's the reason why prices have gone up. The fact is there's no real competition, people don't really understand how to get the best tariff, despite people's best endeavours to do that. In fact, the service was far better when we had a nationalised provider, and that is something I'd like to see return in the future. It's nothing to do with green taxes. It's all to do with the fact that private companies make profits on the back of ordinary people, something he supported and, in fact, that party over there supports as well.

The First Minister, of course, did not answer the question. Five per cent of an electricity bill goes in profits to the electricity companies, 20 per cent in green taxes. So, the First Minister is completely wrong. But however bad things are at the minute, things are going to get worse, because the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts, which accompanied the budget papers this year, show that environmental levies will rise from £10.7 billion this year to £13.5 billion by 2022. So, that means that green taxes will then be over £200 per annum for the average electricity user and a third of power bills.

The introduction of smart meters is going to add another £11 billion to that. That's £84 a year extra for the next five years for every household. Also, an extra £2 billion is going to be spent on upgrading transmission lines and infrastructure to cater for remote windfarms. That adds another £25 per household. So, I repeat my question, which the First Minister didn't answer the first time around: how can we justify loading these charges upon the poorest and most vulnerable in society?

Well, I mean, first of all, I had some rumbling from the party opposite about the overcharging of customers—in 2015, when my party stood in the general election, they accused us of being Marxists for wanting to put a price cap on energy prices. That's how much they cared for ordinary people. We all know what the Tories are like.

Now, in answer to the question posed by the leader of UKIP, every single method of generating energy costs money—every single method. Nuclear costs a great deal of money as well. Yes, we do want to make sure that we have cleaner, greener energy—it's good for energy security; why would we want to import energy from other countries when we can generate our own in a renewable way? Or is he saying is that we should just have coal-fired power stations absolutely everywhere and more opencast? Because that is the upshot of what he's saying.

He refuses to answer the question: how do we justify loading poor people with these excessive charges that are going to grow and grow with every year that passes? The OBR papers—the fiscal supplementary tables—following the budget show that the cost of the Climate Change Act 2008 in 2022 will be nearly £15 billion a year. And, over the next five years, the average household will be spending an enormous amount of its income on green taxes—£66 billion, £2,500 per household, over the next five years, will be taken from household budgets in green taxes. Green taxes are driving poor and vulnerable people into the red.

He talks about driving poor and vulnerable people into the red; the privatisation of energy was one way of doing that—we know that. His party stood on a programme of a flat tax, which would increase taxes for the vast majority of poorer people, and reduce them for people who are earning more. He's in no position to lecture anybody else about looking after poorer people. Let me ask him this—. At the end of the day, he doesn't believe in climate change. I do, he doesn't. I look at the science, he doesn't. That's the way that he sees it.

I believe that cleaning up the environment costs money. The UK was a mess in the 1980s; it was filthy. The River Irwell in Salford would catch fire if you threw a match into it. Where I live in Bridgend, the River Ogmore would run different colours according to what had been chucked into it by whatever industry was upriver. Nobody says to me, 'I want to go back to those days where the environment was degraded, where the rivers were polluted, where the air was polluted', but it seems to be something that he's more than happy to see again.