Thank you. I now call the party spokespeople to question the leader of the house, and the first is the Welsh Conservatives' spokesperson, Russell George.

Diolch, Deputy Presiding Officer. Leader of the house, today marks the end of the two-month extension to the Superfast Cymru project. I've repeatedly asked you and Openreach for details of how many premises were told that they were in scope of the Superfast Cymru project before 31 December, only for the project to end before they had been connected, and for a list of 2,500 premises, which are part of the two-month extension. Can you provide me with an answer to these questions today?

I'm afraid I can't. As I said, it takes us somewhere between 12 and 16 weeks to go through the very vigorous tests and verification process for the claims put in by BT under the superfast contract, but I can assure the Member that as soon as I have that data, I will make it available to the house.

I'm grateful for that. I'm also grateful that you have previously acknowledged the communication issues that have plagued the Superfast Cymru project, and you've pledged to address them with Openreach. However, communication issues do continue. When will the information on the Openreach broadband checker finally reflect what the accurate position is for all premises, including those enabled under the two-month extension? And for those who were in scope for an upgrade under Superfast Cymru but missed out, when will it become clear whether or not they will be included in the next scheme?

Yes, I think there are some communications issues still. Some of those are very complicated now because they are to do with the availability of connections via particular internet service providers, and we have been working with a number of Assembly Members—you included—to make sure that people are getting the right information about the question to ask. Because we have had some examples of people attempting to buy the services through an internet service provider that doesn't provide, for example, fibre-to-the-premises-type services, and the individual being told that the service isn't available, rather than that the particular provider doesn't provide it. So, we've got some complex communications issues going on at the moment. We have got a number of pieces of information on the website to assist with that. In terms of the successor programmes, we're very pleased that we're as near as we can be to looking at what can be done about the stranded assets programme, which I know the Member is very familiar with as well. I'm hoping to have a definitive list of the additional premises that were connected as a result of our extension, so that we could get the ones that have been completed to a very great extent done very shortly. And we think it's actually more than we originally planned, which is good news, but it's what's holding up the information. And in terms of the bespoke programme, we're going to be rolling that out as we speak to individual communities, and they will have a bespoke solution, which they will very much be in control of.

I very much look forward to receiving that additional information. Can I finally turn to the mobile action plan, which to date seems to be characterised by its lack of action? Are you concerned by the comments of your colleague the Cabinet Secretary responsible for planning, who in a recent letter to the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee, appears to have kicked into the long grass the planning reforms that are required to bring Wales in line with planning reforms that have taken place in England and Scotland, to enable the roll-out of mobile infrastructure? What do you say to the mobile industry, and to those people in rural areas who remain without coverage, who are concerned that the Welsh Government does not have the appetite to address the barriers of rolling out a critical mobile infrastructure, and without which coverage improvements cannot be delivered in a timely way? With positive actions being taken elsewhere in the UK, do you agree that this could lead to a situation where Wales does fall significantly behind? And, in your answer, please don't tell me that mobile is the responsibility of the UK Government, when these levers are very much the responsibility of the Welsh Government.

Well, of course, mobile services are not devolved, so it's—. We don't have some of the levers that I would very much like to have in order to move some of these things forward.

Planning is.

But of course some of the levers are within our control. We undertook a piece of planning research to look at what attitudes across Wales were to just increasing mast sizes. And, as I said in my earlier answer about digital radio, the problem with Wales is the population is spread out into every nook and cranny. Just making the masts higher doesn't solve the problem—it's not a silver bullet in any way. And very large numbers of the communities who live in the most beautiful parts of Wales don't want their landscape covered with a lot of very high masts. So, we must come up with some other solutions to that.

So, it is a conversation between us and the UK Government, because we think that, for very rural areas, and low geographical population coverage, we will have to have some solutions that are unpalatable to the industry, such as the ability to roam, for example, between networks. So, if you have 97 per cent coverage for a single network, that's of no use to you at all if you're not on that network, and it doesn't solve the tourist problem either. So it may well be that everybody who lives in the area can swap to that network, but that's useless if you're trying to run a tourist business, and you've got people coming in on the other networks. So, I'm afraid I think there are some more innovative solutions that will need to be put in place by the UK Government in order to allow us to have the very best coverage in Wales, and I continue to press for that.

In the meantime, of course, we have gone out to consultation on the revised 'Planning Policy Wales', in order to gauge what appetite there is in those communities for increased mast coverage, and increased mast height, as a balance for coverage as against the destruction of our very beautiful landscape.

Thank you. Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Siân Gwenllian.

Thank you very much. This week, your Government has published the continuity Bill to ensure that EU law in terms of devolved issues is transferred into Welsh law. But of course there is another important aspect of leaving the European Union, and that is the risk to human rights. So, what is your Government intending to do to ensure that human rights are maintained in Wales in the post-Brexit era?

Thank you for that very important question actually. We've made it very plain that we're utterly opposed to the repeal of the Human Rights Act 1998, and all that that entails, and we're utterly opposed to any withdrawal from the European convention on human rights. We're also opposed to any lessening of human rights protections in the context of the UK's withdrawal from the EU. It's impossible to set out the potential effects of a bill of rights without sight of exactly how these changes would be proposed to be framed. Even small amendments to the Human Rights Act could potentially raise complex legal issues. So, careful scrutiny of any such reforms will be required. The Welsh Government expects to be consulted on these issues when more concrete proposals are made available. But, I just want to make it absolutely plain that we don't see the need for it. We have a Human Rights Act that's been very effective, and it's been shown to be effective. It was drafted mostly by British lawyers in fact. It works inside a convention that has worldwide approval, and to use one of the old clichés, 'Why fix it if it ain't broke?'

Exactly, but it is clear that one of the major risks of exiting the European Union is that some of those who were on the leave side of the campaign, including some of those who funded that campaign, have an ideological vision that is very different to the one that you and I hold: the UK as a low-taxation nation, where public services are privatised, and where employers can treat their employees as they choose, without any safeguarding of workers' rights, for example, for women on maternity, and so on and so forth. I know that that isn't what you or I would want for Wales. So, how can your Government prepare to safeguard these rights—the rights of people, the rights of women and disabled people—against efforts to weaken those rights that are currently part of the make-up of our nation, partly because of European legislation?

Absolutely. And that's very much part of the idea of the continuity Bill, to protect our ability as a devolved Government to protect the transfer of current EU regulation into Welsh law, and to keep it embedded therein. And, actually, just to continue our cultural tradition of being extremely proud of being a culture in Wales that protects human rights and actually welcomes people from across the world, seeking asylum and sanctuary, because we're proud of our human rights record. And I, for one, have got no truck at all with changing our position, either in Wales or in the UK as a whole, to anything other than that, and it's one of the reasons that I think that what we're doing is not the right course of action, and we continue to push that point of view very forcefully. 

But I wonder whether we need to go further than the continuity Bill. I wonder whether we need specific legislation on rights. Professor Simon Hoffman has presented evidence stating that legislation on rights is within the competence of this Assembly. He has stated:

'When the revised Schedule 7A—' of the Wales Act 2017—

'is in force the Welsh Minsters will have power to introduce legislation, and the NAW will be competent to enact legislation in the field of human rights generally'.

Therefore, to me, that suggests that there is a window of opportunity here between the time that Schedule 7A comes into force and when the UK leaves the European Union. There is a window of opportunity to legislate to safeguard as much as possible of these human rights and the workers' rights currently in place. Do you believe that it would be valuable to pass specific legislation in terms of protecting the rights of the people of Wales?

Well, I think there's a possibility of that, but as I said, at the moment, the UK Government's plans to reform human rights are on hold—which I'm delighted to hear them say—until the UK's withdrawal from the EU is finalised. This was confirmed in the Conservative 2017 general election manifesto, one of the only bits of it that I greeted with any enthusiasm. It says:

'We will not repeal or replace the Human Rights Act while the process of Brexit is underway but we will consider our human rights legal framework when the process of leaving the EU concludes. We will remain signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights for the duration of the next Parliament.'

So, that's their current position. Our position very clearly is, as I say, we like the Human Rights Act as it is. We like being a member of the convention on human rights. We think that's fundamental to our culture and our society and we'll continue to push for that. But, quite rightly, we will keep a weather eye on what might need to be done, and while we're discussing the continuity Bill, I'm sure we'll be bearing some of those issues in mind. 

Thank you. UKIP spokesperson, Caroline Jones.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Leader of the house, Wales is facing a huge demographic shift in the near future, with the number of over-65s set to rocket, and the number of those of working age set to plummet. This presents enormous challenges for public services, particularly health and social care. Increased use of digital technologies can help address these problems, but only if we have the proper digital infrastructure. So, how does your Government plan to ensure that our digital infrastructure is fit for future needs?

Yes. We've spent a lot of money, as Members across the Chamber will have heard me say on a number of occasions, on extending superfast broadband right through Wales, and that has a number of effects, not least allowing telemedicine and so on to take effect, so that we take better care of our population as a whole, and specifically those who have any kind of mobility or distance issues. That's very much part of the reason we've spent very large numbers of millions on the roll-out of that digital infrastructure.

I will say, however, to the Member that I have a fundamental problem really with the start of what she said, because one of the issues we now face is the difficulty of attracting migrants of working age into the Welsh economy as a result of her party's pushing of a particular migration policy with which I fundamentally disagree. So, actually, restricting immigration for breeder-age populations, which is what largely migrant populations actually are, is a fundamentally backwards step in readjusting our economy. 

Thank you for that answer, leader of the house, because I was coming on to telemedicine, which is fast becoming a solution for healthcare in rural areas and widely seen as a solution to the shortages that we have in primary care. Unfortunately, those same rural areas are poorly provisioned in both broadband and mobile reception. So, if we are to address health inequalities in rural parts of Wales, we have to ensure that digital communications are 100 per cent reliable. So, what discussions have you had with the UK Government and the service providers regarding the provision of reliable digital communications to 100 per cent of the population? 

Well, we've had extensive conversations with the UK Government about this, particularly in light of the Digital Economy Act 2017. They've gone for a 10 Mbps universal service obligation; however, it's not yet at all clear what 'universal' means in this context. It's unlikely to mean 100 per cent as that's not likely to be within the budget associated with the Act. We think 10 Mbps isn't sufficient, and one of the reasons we don't think it's sufficient is that it's not sufficient for telemedicine. In fact, only this morning, in my ministerial data and digital services group, we had a presentation from the Powys Teaching Local Health Board about their new community care information system and we were discussing the need to extend broadband further into rural Wales as part of the new Superfast 2 programme, with a view to getting 30 Mbps minimum speeds across large parts of Wales. It's worth mentioning that without Superfast Cymru none of that would have ever been done: no part of Powys, Ceredigion or Carmarthenshire would ever have been done under a commercial roll-out. So, it's entirely due to the Welsh Government's programme that these areas have any broadband at all. 

Thank you, once again, for those answers, leader of the house. Our digital infrastructure depends not only upon cables and radio transmitters, but also highly trained personnel, particularly in cyber security and data management. Cyber attacks and data centre outages have wreaked havoc on the NHS in recent times, highlighting the fact that computer scientists are as vital to our NHS as the life scientists. What discussions have you had with the Cabinet Secretary for Education about ensuring Wales has sufficient skilled individuals to protect our digital infrastructure?

Yes, cyber security is a real live issue for us obviously and I very recently met with Ciaran Martin, the chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre, and my officials maintain a good working relationship with his organisation. We're very pleased that the NCSC has just announced a dedicated devolved administrations relationships manager to work with us in Wales. Our officials held a workshop with him at the end of January to discuss robust cyber instant management procedures and that's right across the Welsh Government. So, we're very actively involved in ensuring that we have good cyber security across the Welsh public estate. 

Now, we return to the questions on the order paper. Question 3, Mike Hedges.