The next item, therefore, is the business statement and announcement, and I call on the leader of the house to make the statement. Julie James. 

Diolch, Llywydd. The statement 'The Best Start in Life: Making Early Years Count', has been withdrawn from today's agenda. Timings for other items have been adjusted accordingly. Business for the next three weeks is shown on the business statement and announcement, found amongst the meeting papers available to Members electronically.

Leader of the house, could we have a statement either from the First Minister, or a letter from the Permanent Secretary, outlining the way the operational protocol was put in place for the QC-led inquiry? There have been various reports in the media that I would suggest cause grave areas of concern and do need explaining. I do draw the leader of the house's attention to some of the comments that refer to:

'Mr Bowen can only go as far as the permanent secretary will allow' and 

'The permanent secretary, acting on behalf of the First Minister'.

Also, the advice that was given to civil service employees last week on the intranet, obviously, that's available to employees, in the Permanent Secretary's name and also the head of human resources and director of governance, also causes grave concern, I would suggest. I'd be most grateful if—and I'll be guided by you on this, who the appropriate person would be to address this, whether it's the Permanent Secretary herself, via a letter to Assembly Members, who could clarify some of these areas so that we can have confidence, or the First Minister via a statement. I do hope that the leader of the house will facilitate such response that can close off some of these areas of concern that have been highlighted recently.

I'm more than happy to discuss with the Permanent Secretary the best way of making sure that Assembly Members are fully informed as to where we are with the inquiry and what the protocol entails. 

Last week, leader of the house, I asked you whether we'd be likely to discuss a legislative consent motion arising from the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill and you assured us that was highly unlikely. Since then, however, the Lords have voted in favour of requiring the Secretary of State to pass primary legislation within a period of six months following Royal Assent of the Bill—that's the EU withdrawal Bill—to place on public authorities a duty to apply EU environmental principles after Brexit and setting up an independent body with a purpose of ensuring compliance. 

Now, those requirements and duties are precisely what was suggested in our amendments to our still extant continuity Act—long title available. You told us at the time not to press, though we did press, the amendments, but they were rejected by the Government on the basis that you'd take the first legislative opportunity to do that yourself. But here we have the Lords—. Because public authorities are not defined as England only. This is the problem, it just says 'public authorities', so it could easily be seen, in the context of an EU withdrawal Bill that is England and Wales in terms of legislative application, as applying here in Wales. So, we have the Lords suggesting that this should happen, we have the promise from Welsh Government of doing another thing, and it strikes me that this is, in fact, something that this place should assent to, except, of course, we can't, because it's all bound up in agreements. If things are ping-ponged and then the Lords and the Government agree, it doesn't get back to the House of Commons, doesn't get debated again, and, in effect, having been assented to in the Lords, this is now part of the Bill, and us passing an LCM is symbolic—or not passing it, as the case may be, is symbolic. But I would nevertheless be interested to know whether the Government intends, in the interest of procedure but also of visible transparency, to present an LCM to the Assembly so that we can have our say on this debate.

Plaid Cymru is particularly interested because we tried to make the amendments, but I think other Members here are also interested in some aspects of this. It just draws to attention this crazy way of trying to legislate for devolved Governments and devolved Parliaments when you're actually caught up with the most archaic way possible that Westminster performs its legislative duties in ping-ponging back and fore without the ability for anyone, really, to have a proper say in things that really impinge on our powers. So, I would appreciate a statement on that now. 

And, if I can turn to one other matter that's happened this week, which I think is of great relevance to the Assembly, the Assembly itself voted on a backbench debate, I think it was, to support the legalisation of medical cannabis and the availability of that. We were ahead of the debate in doing that, and recent events, of course, and a very particular family—but other epileptic children, I know, are affected by this, and there's been some very limited prescribing of medical cannabis. The curious thing is that the UK leads the world in the production, development and exporting of medicinal cannabis, and we can't legislate to have it available for patients ourselves. Cannabis can be a dangerous drug, and this is a separate argument to whether we should decriminalise cannabis or not for the purposes of drug control, but a powerful drug—all powerful drugs—have medicinal effects, and if we can allow opiates to be used on a prescription and led by a GP, then why on earth can't we allow cannabis or cannabinoids to be used in a similar way?

Now, the UK Government has said that it will set up an expert commission to do this, but this is an area that is devolved in terms of prescription policy and in terms of payment. So, can we have a statement from the health Cabinet Secretary in particular saying how Wales now can be part of this debate? It's one thing to have an expert panel in London—we want to be part of that, we want to know how it applies in our communities, and, since we have voted as an Assembly, I assumed there would be a lot of support for that to happen.  

Yes, well, two very important points. On the second point, the last, because it's fresh in my mind, yes, it was very interesting, wasn't it, the swiftness that that agenda moved forward in the light of one particular case, although, actually, I'm pretty sure all of us could highlight other cases—perhaps not quite as stark, given what happened—but it certainly underlined it. And Simon Thomas is right—we all broadly took that view. I will discuss with the Cabinet Secretary where we are and make sure that he updates Members in the most appropriate way, but I know it's a matter of great interest to a large number of us. It's always interesting, isn't it, how one single case can suddenly grab the headlines and move a whole agenda forward in that way. 

Anyway, that leads me on to the chaotic way of governing that you mentioned earlier, and I couldn't agree more. The LCM issue is a live issue. We discussed it in Business Committee this morning, Llywydd, as you know. Our current position is that it was made very clear on the floor of the House of Lords, and has been made very clear to the Government, that there is no intention of legislating on behalf of anyone other than England and English public authorities, but I completely agree that the wording is less than optimal, shall we say, and the ping pong is also less than optimal. 

I just wanted to be very clear that it was on the basis that we have that assurance that we are not going ahead with an LCM, and not on any other basis. I think we'd also like to make it very clear—and I know the Llywydd feels this as well—that we would have wanted to take an LCM to state our view should it have been the case that we were not assured that it was out of scope that they were going to do it for Wales. So, the principle is a very important part of it here. But we are assured of that—we've been assured of it as a Government and, in fact, it was said as part of the debate. But I actually welcome the opportunity to say now our position is that the LCM is not required because we have been assured that they are not intending to legislate on behalf of Wales. In all other circumstances, we would have wanted to allow this Parliament to make its point of view known so that, by the time the Bill was ultimately passed, Members who were voting on that Bill would be very clear what our view was, even if it wasn't in time to affect a particular section of the Bill. And I know the Llywydd agrees with that. 

So, just to be very clear on that point—. But I agree with you that this is not, obviously, a very good way of dealing with what is the single most important thing that's happened probably in our generation; I couldn't agree more. But just to be clear on the environmental thing, the statement that I gave holds. We will bring forward legislation at the earliest opportunity and, of course, should they legislate in that regard for Wales then that itself would need an LCM, just to be clear, so there would be another opportunity. But the principle is right, and we agree with Simon Thomas. Other than for the assurances, we would want to make that point very clear as between Parliaments, but we have been given those assurances, and on that basis we do not think an LCM is necessary.    

There are two issues I wanted to raise, and the first one was the issue of progress on eliminating hepatitis C. I think 12 months ago we had a very good cross-party debate about the aim of eliminating hepatitis C in Wales by 2030, and the Government responded with a series of actions. I wondered if it would be possible to have a statement outlining the progress that's been made in the different health boards on delivering those actions. That was the first one. And the second one was, on the weekend, the UK Government designated 22 June Windrush Day, and I wondered if the Government itself had any plans to mark that day. 

On that second one, I'm delighted to say that I'm hosting a Windrush celebration in the millennium centre on the twenty-second, and I'd be very glad to see a large number of Assembly Members there. Anyone who can get there will be very welcome indeed. It's a very important thing to celebrate the contribution of the Windrush generation—the entire generation, not just the people who came on the Windrush itself, of course—to the culture and development of Wales. They've had a very, very significant role in the culture and development of Wales as a nation, and they certainly deserve to be celebrated for that. 

In terms of hepatitis C, a patient notification exercise is currently being finalised in order to reach out to patients who were diagnosed with hepatitis C at a time when the treatment wasn't available. A national specification for testing in community pharmacies is being developed at the moment, and targets for our substance misuse services are being developed in order to increase testing in those services. We're currently engaged in negotiations with the pharmaceutical industry to agree a new funding deal for hepatitis C treatments, and we're also engaged with counterparts in England to consider the details and potential benefits for Wales before any final decision is made. I'm sure the health Secretary will update us as soon as those negotiations are complete. The Member has been very assiduous in advancing this for her patients, and I'm sure the health Secretary will keep her informed in particular. 

Cabinet Secretary, may I ask for a statement from the Cabinet Secretary for health on Welsh Government policy towards setting up fix rooms for drug addicts in Wales? In November 2016, I raised this issue in the business statement following the news that a pilot project was being set up in Glasgow. The business Secretary at the time said that it was clearly a very important issue and she was sure a statement would be forthcoming. Now, the chief executive of the charity The Wallich earlier this month said that fix rooms for drug addicts would bring so many benefits that it would be ridiculous not to have them now. Could we have a statement from the Cabinet Secretary and Welsh Government on this very important issue? I want to know why there's been silence for so long please.

The Cabinet Secretary is indicating to me that we did publish a response, but he's also indicated to me that he'll recirculate it to make sure Members are kept in that loop. 

Leader of the house, you may be aware that the Welsh Government last week confirmed that over £36 million of public money has been spent on developing a business park at Felindre in Swansea, yet despite being in public ownership for 20 years, Felindre business park remains empty. You may also be aware of other parcels of land in South Wales West that have been labelled as future business parks but remain empty—land in Glynneath, for example, just off the A465, owned by the Welsh Government but not even included within Neath Port Talbot's local development plan, or the infamous piece of land at Baglan, which has been empty for so long that the Ministry of Justice thought that it could be used for another purpose. It seems that there's a major issue in terms of how the Welsh Government is going about investing in these areas, how it goes about targeting sectors and attracting companies to these sites, and how it ultimately is failing to develop jobs in these areas. Now, with the Valleys taskforce looking to deliver even more land for business or industrial use, we are looking at the potential of south Wales being flooded with available industrial land, yet severely lacking in terms of ideas on how to fill them. So, would the Welsh Government therefore commit to bringing forward a statement on how it plans to develop jobs on land that it owns in Wales, and how it plans to move from a position whereby sites are empty to a position whereby sites are actually providing quality employment for local people?

Well, I don't entirely agree with everything the Member said there, but it's a very important point, what the Welsh Government does with Welsh Government-owned land. We have developed a whole set of data points to be able to identify public-owned land, not just Welsh Government-owned land, because sometimes it's important to assemble sites in that way. And we have been working, as part of the Valleys taskforce, very much on a project to make sure that we can do just that. The Cabinet Secretary for public services, who's in charge of the Valleys taskforce, will be updating Members on the Valleys taskforce, which will include the issue of Welsh Government-owned land and what we can do in order to maximise its benefits, as part of his update on the Valleys taskforce shortly. 

Cabinet Secretary, the Cabinet Secretary for health, well-being and sport actually issued a written statement outlining the decision to change the boundaries for Abertawe Bro Morgannwg and Cwm Taf health boards. This has some important consequences for my constituents and Neath Port Talbot Hospital, which is serviced by clinicians from the Bridgend area, and also, many departments are linked and managed by the Bridgend side. Now, we haven't had an opportunity to question the Cabinet Secretary on this, and that very important question on the details of finance. For example, how is the deficit going to be allocated, how is the servicing and the funding for the different parts going to be worked out? So, all those service agreements. Now, I appreciate that there are elements to be discussed. Would it be possible to have an oral statement from the Cabinet Secretary, so we can explore the opportunities as to who's going to fund this? Because I attended a carers event in Neath Port Talbot Hospital last week, and they're fighting for £10,000 just to get some caring services going, and yet we may be talking of larger sums than this just to do this management. Can we have that oral statement so that we can explore the details of this proposal to ensure that, actually, it will, in the long term, continue to deliver for the people in my constituency?

Llywydd, I'd just like to point out that, obviously, that covers my own constituency as well, so Members should be aware of that. The Government announced on 14 June that, from April next year, Cwm Taf university health board will be responsible for healthcare services in the Bridgend county borough council area, as Dai Rees has just said. Those are currently provided by ABMU, and all the Assembly Members in the ABMU health board area, I know, have just received a communication from the chief executive there about some of the arrangements. The Cabinet Secretary has indicated to me that he's happy to meet with interested Assembly Members to discuss some of the issues and to tease out some of the specific details. I know a number of Assembly Members have indicated a wish for that to happen, and so we'll arrange for that meeting to go forward as soon as possible.

I call for two statements. Firstly, to add my voice to the voice of Simon Thomas earlier regarding the provision of medicinal cannabis on prescription. We heard of the case—it was well publicised—of Billy and Charlotte Caldwell. You may recall that, in January, I led a debate in the Assembly, as chair of the cross-party group on neurological conditions, highlighting that this wasn't about one person, it was about multiple people, with multiple conditions, who were already being forced to access cannabis illegally, rather than having individually distillated prescriptions to meet their particular needs. After that debate, I hosted Billy and his mother Charlotte in this Assembly, and they told us their story. We heard that Billy used to suffer up to 100 seizures a day until he began treatment with cannabis oil, following successful treatment in Los Angeles by a children's epilepsy specialist, and he became virtually seizure free. On return from Los Angeles, Charlotte told us, he became the first person to be prescribed medicinal cannabis on the UK NHS. Charlotte has been campaigning for medicinal cannabis from the NHS, recognising the desperation felt by many families fighting to be afforded the same access that she fought so hard for. And she was adamant, and remains adamant, that this is a separate issue entirely, and must not become confused with debates over recreational use, or broader drug legalisation—a valid debate, many people may feel, but not relevant to this debate. She contacted me again in May, after her doctor was summoned to a meeting with Home Office officials, and told to desist writing his prescriptions. After that, I wrote to the Home Secretary, urging him and his officials to urgently contact her to find a resolution and a way forward. We heard that the UK Government has now set out plans for an expert clinical panel to look at individual cases, and I know, in January, I was calling on the Welsh Government to put in place preparations within the Welsh NHS for potential prescription here. Adding to Simon Thomas's comments, I would be grateful for a detailed statement acknowledging the issue and detailing how the Welsh Government proposes to address this, in alignment with the UK, but also in the devolved context, and hopefully add its voice of support, a voice that sadly wasn't fulsome when I led the debate in January.

Secondly, I want to add my voice to calls by Andrew R.T. Davies earlier, in questions to the First Minister, regarding prostate cancer diagnosis in Wales, and for a statement accordingly, on this date when Prostate Cancer UK has produced figures following research they've carried out across the UK that don't put Wales in a particularly good light. More than 2,500 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer each year in Wales; about 600 will die in Wales each year. I had a letter from the Cabinet Secretary only last week, to a constituent, again saying he can't see any reason why a patient in north Wales with suspected prostate cancer should have to pay privately for an mpMRI scan if they've been found to have a negative biopsy. I've repeatedly told him—and I have numerous constituents who come to me who have gone to the community health council stating they have had to pay and still haven't had justice. The figures referred to by Prostate Cancer UK were from a freedom of information request to health bodies across the UK asking them about the use of the scans before biopsy. They found that whereas across the UK only 13 per cent of health bodies were not providing it, the figure in Wales was 50 per cent, and they said, 18 months after the promised trial first proved that the mpMRI scans before a biopsy could radically boost detection of prostate cancer, in their words, that

'Wales is lagging behind other parts of the UK in terms of making this breakthrough diagnostic available, putting Welsh men at a disadvantage.'

Well, let's put some action behind the rhetoric about Wales leading the way and Wales wanting to show the rest of the UK how things should be done. This shouldn't be happening. We need action pre biopsy, we need action pro biopsy and we need these men's voices to be heard at last. 

Thank you, Mark Isherwood, for both of those points. As you said yourself, they have already been aired today. The First Minister gave a very long response to Andrew R.T. Davies—well deserved on such an important topic—and I've already indicated to Simon Thomas what the position on medical cannabis is. I'm sure that we'll take that forward as soon as possible. 

I'm sure the leader of the house has seen the upsetting images of desperate people slumped over park benches and in shop doorways following the use of various substances. It's not good for anyone, but it's particularly bad for children to witness, I would argue. Now, in the light of recent stories of high numbers of deaths from drug overdoses in some of our former industrial towns, as well as incidents elsewhere, where the problem of county lines drug dealing networks has been highlighted, I'd be grateful if we could receive a statement from the Government addressing the following points: first of all, the extent that local authorities and health services are able to cope with this issue, particularly given that the county lines networks are exploiting vulnerable people often homeless people; secondly, whether the Government supports the north Wales police and crime commissioner Arfon Jones's call for safer injecting rooms to be piloted—international examples show that these rooms save lives; thirdly, the extent that this Government is working with the non-devolved criminal justice system to address this growing problem; and, fourthly, whether the Government shares my view that we need to move away from seeing drug problems as criminal justice matters and instead moving towards public health, as they view them in Portugal. I'd also be grateful to know if the Government shares my concerns and lack of confidence in Westminster's ability to debate these matters in a rational way. 

On that last one—starting, again, as I always do, backwards, for some reason—I completely agree with you. Of course, the criminal justice system often makes the situation worse, not better. In my own constituency, it's obvious that particularly young people who are caught up in this need assistance and not punishment. That's very much part of the debate about the role of the criminal justice system in this. We're very much wanting to catch the county lines perpetrators and not the people who are caught up in the substance misuse. I couldn't agree with her more. I also agree with the safer injection rooms. There's a very good project in Swansea, actually, that has done this. The Swansea drugs project has done very good pilots on that and the outcome is plain to see for everyone.

Substance misuse is a real issue. I myself have just been talking to the multi-agency safeguarding hub here in Cardiff about the best way to approach some of the multi-agency issues. This is really complex. It crosses across devolved and non-devolved things but it also crosses across a whole range of other issues. I think I've said this before, Llywydd, in this Chamber, but the MASH here in Cardiff is well worth a visit if you haven't visited it to see what their multi-agency approach to this is, because it's very obvious that you need an approach to stop the organised crime part of it, you need a public health approach for the substance misuse and you need a social response to some of the social issues that allow people to fall into this situation. It's a hugely complicated picture and we do have a large number of multi-agency responses already. 

I will discuss with Cabinet colleagues—. Some of that is in my portfolio and some of it is in others. I will discuss with Cabinet colleagues in terms of bringing forward some statement on how we're co-ordinating that across the Government, because it is a very important point.

Can I ask for a further update on the Welsh Government action to support people working for Virgin Media in Swansea? Has the Welsh Government taskforce been allowed access to talk to staff and provide details of potential other employers?

Can I ask a second question? As the Cabinet Secretary's well aware, living in the same area, there's been huge success with the development of Llandarcy, SA1, Swansea Vale and Baglan energy park within the former west Glamorgan area. Is it not true that it is beneficial to try and develop one area at a time rather than having them competing against each other, and isn't Felindre next on the list?

Yes, well, on that point, absolutely. It's important to have a strategy, as I said, across the public realm, to make sure that you do optimise the use of that and that you don't have competing priorities. What we don't want to do is have a race over competing investment in a particular area. It's also important, as I said, to combine the public realm so that you can do land combinations or building and land combinations, or road network and land combinations. So, the Member is quite right to point that out.

In terms of Virgin, we have been assured as a Government that employees will have access to time off and support to apply for other jobs, where that's appropriate, to keep their skills and talents in the area. The Cabinet Secretary assures me that we've had good co-operation from Virgin. I will make sure to have a conversation with him to make sure that the pressure is kept up so that we do make sure that the vast majority of those staff have their very highly developed skills retained for the benefit of Wales's economy.

I wonder whether I could ask for one or possibly two statements as this covers two portfolio areas, please. I hope you'll join me in congratulating Glasgow, which has just become the first city in the UK to make emergency life-saving skills compulsory on the secondary school curriculum there, something their director of public health has been applauded for leading the way on there. 

As it's also the anniversary of the Cabinet Secretary's statement on the out-of-hospital cardiac arrest plan for Wales, I wonder whether we could have an update on that, covering these four points specifically: the first is the role of co-responders, who were mentioned in the statement a year ago. I'm still waiting for a letter from the ambulance trust promised to me by the Cabinet Secretary to explain why more recent rumours were circulating that the role of co-responders was going to be diminished rather than included. Could we also hear an update on the number of schools that are now taking up emergency life-saving skills voluntarily; the place and progression of emergency life-saving skills on the curriculum that's currently in development—I appreciate that that is not the Cabinet Secretary for health; and also whether there's been a big upsurge in the registration of defibrillators, given that more and more organisations are themselves deciding to provide them? Thank you.

I wasn't aware of Glasgow, but I'm obviously happy to congratulate them on that. That's quite a complex area. I'll chase up why you haven't had a response to the letter that you were promised, but I will discuss with a range of Cabinet colleagues the best way to update the Chamber, Llywydd, because that's quite a complicated cross-Government piece. 

Firstly, I'd just like to take the opportunity to welcome Ysgol Bryn Deva to the gallery upstairs. It's actually my primary school, so it's really great to see them here today. 

I'd just like to move on, leader of the house, to this weekend, and this weekend is, as many of you know, is the Great Get Together, a day inspired by the late Jo Cox MP. I'll be holding my own events in the constituency in Alyn and Deeside, and I trust that all Members from across the Chamber will be supporting them in their own communities as well, with that truly great event. Leader of the house, this Saturday is International Women in Engineering Day. As a former engineer, I am keen to see all of our future generations, including women, enter the industry of engineering and manufacturing. A survey in 2017 indicated that 11 per cent of the UK engineering workforce is female. Now, that's up 2 per cent since 2015, but the UK as a whole still has the lowest percentage of female engineering professionals within Europe.

I know that the Welsh Government is working extremely hard on this matter, but would the leader of the house join me in paying tribute to those women within the engineering workforce currently and those thinking about going into the engineering workforce and agree with me that we need to do more to change perceptions and encourage young people, both male and female, to consider engineering as a viable and rewarding career in the future?

Absolutely. Well, in good tradition of doing everything backwards in the order I'm asked in, that's very much a matter after my own heart and very much a soap box of mine. I do chair the Welsh Government's women in STEM—although it should be 'STEMC' because it should have computer science on the end—board, and we are working very hard to make sure that we can get good role models out into schools to make sure that all our young people, actually, not just women, take up engineering. We could certainly do across the board with more engineers, but particularly more women engineers. I have discussed with the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Transport, as part of the economic action plan, what we can do to reward companies that particularly target getting more women into STEM, and rewarding the STEM careers as well. So, I'm delighted that Jack Sargeant has highlighted that issue, because it's a very important issue and, I know, dear to his heart as well.

I'm always delighted to welcome schools to our gallery, Llywydd. I think they were here earlier. I think they've probably gone off for a tour now. They were sitting just opposite me, and I certainly noticed them. There may be some still there. There was certainly a whole school up there earlier. I'm always delighted to welcome them.

They're still here. 

And it's also great to be able to highlight that it's the Jo Cox Great Get Together weekend, and I do hope, Llywydd, that a large number of communities across Wales will take that opportunity to get together and to see that we do indeed have more in common than that which divides us. 

They're behind you, Minister. [Laughter.]

Oh, there we are. Good. 

Leader of the Chamber, a couple of week ago, I asked the First Minister some questions about the new Wales and borders rail franchise, but he seemed to completely miss the point of my question. I asked specifically whether the rail infrastructure itself on the core Valleys lines was being handed over to a private company. I asked whether the Welsh Government had agreement from Network Rail to hand over the infrastructure to private companies. I asked whether the staff in Network Rail would be handed over to a private company also. Now, I don't want to talk about the trains or be told that you have some deal with the trade unions. I was asking for passengers who want to know whether rail safety is being privatised by this Government in Wales, because that went very badly last time, with the Hatfield disaster. So, the public really do need a statement on this. 

Rail safety was very much a priority of the Cabinet Secretary in looking at the rail franchise, and he has included it in a number of his statements, and there are many opportunities for you to question him on it. But I will, Llywydd, make sure that the issue of rail safety is highlighted the next time rail is discussed in the Chamber. 

Leader of the house, in February, Welsh Ministers stated they were considering making a screening direction to Biomass UK No.2 Limited, developing the Barry incinerator, under the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) (Wales) Regulations 2017, citing that the characteristics of the development fall within the EIA regulations. I'm curious what the delay is in progressing the screening. Can the leader of the house find out from the environment Minister whether she would disclose any correspondence with the developer on this matter since February?

Secondly, can I have a statement following the National Audit Office report, which concluded that the Department for Work and Pensions has not achieved value for money on its early implementation of universal credit? Last week, two disabled men won their cases, having lost £175 as a result of universal credit—a week, that is. This is of great concern, of course, because universal credit is now being rolled out in Wales. 

Yes. On that last point, I think we're all very deeply concerned about the fundamental flaws of universal credit, and we're very disappointed that the UK Government is persisting with the roll-out, given the National Audit Office's really quite scathing report about the effects that it has. Llywydd, many Members in this Chamber have highlighted the issues with universal credit and the hardship that many of their constituents have, none more assiduously than Jane Hutt. We're very concerned that the high cost of administering universal credit outweighs any of its perceived benefits, and we're all aware of the number of people who are really pushed towards food banks and so on, with the delays in the payment and the various things that people have highlighted around the assessment process and so on. The Minister for Housing and Regeneration has already written to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to ask for her views on how alternative payment arrangements can be offered to claimants on the basis of a much more informed choice to help those who are most vulnerable. We know that the situation is very concerning indeed, and Rebecca Evans—the Minister who has responsibility for that—is keeping a very close eye on it and has already written on a number of occasions. I will investigate with her whether it's worth writing again in the light of this.

In terms of the Barry biomass, I'm aware that residents of Barry have been waiting a long time for the decision in respect of the environmental impact assessment. We're currently looking at the environmental information produced by parties including the developer and the Docks Incinerator Action Group to inform a way forward. I'm afraid I don't have an exact timescale, but we are anticipating a decision within the next few weeks. And I most certainly will ask the Minister to write to you with regard to any correspondence with the developer that she's had.

We're out of time on the statement, but two very succinct, quick questions, Nick Ramsay.

Diolch, Llywydd. Leader of the house, this lunch time I was pleased to host the Agricultural Law Association event in the Senedd, attended by my colleague David Melding and a number of other AMs. The subject was the devolution of taxation and the impact of primarily stamp duty—land transaction tax—on rural communities in Wales and the agricultural community. I wonder if we could have an update from the Cabinet Secretary for Finance on the roll-out of tax devolution. It strikes me that many people still aren't really aware of the mechanics of that devolution. We're currently seeing issues with the LTT, but, obviously, next year we have the devolution of partial income tax as well to Wales. So, I wonder if we can have an update on what communication has happened between Welsh Government and people across Wales to make sure that these changes are fully understood and appreciated.

Yes. Actually, we're very pleased with the way that the tax arrangements were implemented—the historic tax arrangements for Wales—because it was all done digitally. It was a very complex project and, actually, there were no problems at all, which is always very pleasing, Llywydd.

The Cabinet Secretary for Finance is always very anxious to have occasions on which he can wax eloquent about tax. I will certainly discuss with him when his next statement updating the Chamber will be.

Equally succinct, hopefully, Jenny Rathbone.

At lunch time, the cross-party group on gambling and the cross-party group on children and young people combined to hear very important and rather disturbing evidence from Professor Samantha Thomas, based on the research she's done in Australia on the way the gambling industry is targeting children and young people. And lest we think that this is a problem confined to Australia, she visited two schools yesterday here, in the Vale of Glamorgan and Pontypridd, where the young people were able to identify who all the gambling companies are, the colour of their logo, and the jingles and the jokes they use in their advertising. And this is the way in which the gambling industry is targeting children and young people. In Australia, they've now banned advertising before the 8.30 p.m. watershed. I wondered if we could have a statement from the relevant Welsh Minister as to what our policy is going to be to protect children and young people from becoming gambling addicts.

Yes, I share the Member's concern about this, and we discussed it quite recently in the Chamber. The Cabinet Secretary for health and I wrote to the Advertising Standards Authority, and we've had quite a comprehensive response. Llywydd, I'll investigate what the best way of sharing that with Members is and make sure that it's shared as soon as possible as it reiterates a number of the issues that Jenny Rathbone's just raised.

Thank you to the leader of the house.

Before we progress, can I just apologise to the Chamber for the musical accompaniment this afternoon? We think we've identified the source—it's wind related. I'm hoping that it will cease soon. [Interruption.] No jokes. I shouldn't have even mentioned that.