3. Will the First Minister outline the Welsh Government’s plans for its food and fun school clubs this summer? OAQ51822

Yes. In partnership with the WLGA, we will continue increasing the number of local authorities and schools running this scheme by making a further £500,000 available during 2018-19. This will involve working with partners, including local health boards and Public Health Wales, to align agendas, for example, by reducing adverse childhood experiences or increasing sport participation. 

Thank you, leader of the house. It was a real privilege for me, last summer, to visit the lunch and fun club in Penywaun in my constituency and see the positive benefits that this initiative was having, and that's threefold: it's in terms of providing two hot meals a day to all pupils who are eligible for free school meals; providing fun educational activities; but also I was interested in the fact that it provided additional work hours for some of the lowest paid school staff as well. Last week saw perhaps the most game-changing announcement on the holiday hunger agenda with Labour-led North Lanarkshire Council announcing that it is looking to provide meals to its FSM pupils 365 days a year, with an additional cost implication allegedly of only £0.5 million for one of the authorities with the highest rates of free school meals. This is backed up by research that shows that it could improve concentration and possibly provide a powerful lever to close the elusive attainment gap between those who are eligible for free school meals and those who are not. Will the Welsh Government look to monitor this pilot to see whether it is something that could also be tried in Wales?

Yes, indeed. The food and fun scheme is a great scheme—it's won seven awards, including an NHS award recognising the scheme's adherence to the tenets of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. I'm delighted to say that the Sustain charity wrote to all UK Governments in 2017 highlighting the Welsh model for tackling holiday hunger as the best in the UK. So, we're very pleased with what we've got already, and, as I've said, we are extending it. We will, however, be watching with keen interest the outcome of the North Lanarkshire pilot, which is funded by the local authority, and we'll be looking to consider the evaluations of that pilot in taking our own scheme forward. I very much hope that it works out and that we can emulate it.

Leader of the house, one thing that is very important is, of course, to make sure that there is childcare provision in the school holidays, and, indeed, outside of the school holidays. What consideration has the Welsh Government given to the concerns that have been expressed by the future generations commissioner and, indeed, the Professional Association for Childcare and Early Years about the penalties that grandparents, aunties, uncles, brothers and sisters might face if they are child minding on behalf of their relatives? Surely, we want to be encouraging families to share responsibilities for caring, not discouraging them by penalising them because of the Welsh Government's change in its guidance last year.

I share the Member's concern, actually, but I'm not sure I'd put it in quite the way that he did. Only registered child minders are currently eligible to receive funding as part of the offer because legislation for 2010, actually, states that the person looking after a child does not act as a child minder if that person is a parent or relative of the child, or a foster parent of the child. So, we can't currently fund child minders to care for children who are related to them unless it's part of a wider scheme where they're looking after other children.

We have been discussing this with PACEY, and we continue to talk to them about what changes, if any, might be made to the legislation ahead of the national roll-out of our offer, with a view to seeing what we can do to balance the two slightly conflicting priorities of ensuring that people meet all of the regulations and qualifications—the food safety and all-the-rest-of-it standards you'd expect for somebody looking after children—and enabling grandparents and so on to take advantage of that scheme. So, we are working on that. I do share some of his concerns, but I wouldn't put it in quite the way he did, and we are actively looking to see what we can do about it.