Questions now from the party leaders. The leader of the opposition—Paul Davies.

Thank you, Llywydd. Leader of the house, do you believe that it's right that an important public body can operate without giving due regard to legal frameworks or taxpayers' money?

No, of course I don't, and I don't know what he's referring to. But, no, in general, of course, the answer to that would be 'of course I don't'.

Well, I'm pleased that she would agree with that, because we do have an institution here in Wales that is operating without giving due regard to legal frameworks or taxpayers’ money. As you know, Natural Resources Wales is responsible for a catalogue of failings that have grave outcomes for the sustainable management of Wales’s resources. Not only have the body’s accounts been qualified for three of the five years of its operation, but it’s also lost £1 million of public money to the taxpayer. In a damning report on NRW, the Public Accounts Committee has raised concerns that the institution isn’t taking responsibility for its failings and has disregarded many recommendations made by the auditor general. When I asked the First Minister back in October, he was of the view that this organisation was fit for purpose. So, do you as a Government still believe that this organisation is fit for purpose?

I think that there is a new management regime at NRW. The Cabinet Secretary has answered questions on this, as has the First Minister, on a number of occasions. Changing the organisation now would be a massive organisational change, on top of some of the other challenges that the Member has mentioned. We've only just put—very recently in organisational terms—a new chief executive in, we have a new board, five new board members and a new interim chair. I think it's time to let them get on with the task and not to visit another set of organisational challenges on top of what they already have. 

Leader of the house, I feel that you’re not accepting the scale of this problem. This is an institution that is failing: it’s failing to improve on its performance and to learn from its grave mistakes, it’s failing to follow its statutory and legal requirements, and it’s failing to deliver value for money for the taxpayers of Wales. It’s clear that your Government has no strategy in place to deal with this organisation, and even one Member of your own party has described NRW as ‘out of control’.

Many of us have grave concerns about the ability of your Government to manage public services, with our largest health board in special measures, along with 19 schools. NRW is another public organisation that is under your management that is failing to deliver. So, leader of the house, on behalf of everyone who appreciates and relies on Welsh natural resources, will you now call time on this organisation, which is clearly failing, and ensure that it is totally reformed?

As I said, I think that would be entirely the wrong approach to organisational challenge. The Member is very keen on highlighting some of the negative aspects and, absolutely, the organisation has a number of things that it needs to address, and its new management arrangements are designed to address them. But I think there are two sides to every story. It is important to remember that during storm Callum, for example, NRW delivered internationally acclaimed projects to help with emergency responder issues, with flood protection, with alleviation. It manages 7 per cent of Wales's land area and employs 1,900 staff. It is important that the management of that organisation has the chance to bed in and sort out its problems. I think I'm right in quoting a Roman general in saying that the illusion of change can be done by simply moving the boards around. What you actually need is real management structural change and we believe we've now got the management team in place to do that.  

Plaid Cymru leader—Adam Price. 

Diolch, Llywydd. Back in January, the First Minister stated in this Chamber that your Government was completely against privatisation in the NHS and contrasted that with the situation in England. Indeed, the policy of the Government when Carwyn Jones first became First Minister was to phase out the use of the private sector completely by 2011. What actions are you taking today to ensure that health boards do not allow private sector providers to increase their foothold here in Wales? 

Yes, we're absolutely committed to making sure that the national health service is based on its founding principles, so delivered by public sector staff where at all possible and free at the point of delivery. 

It's well established that your Government's record on NHS waiting times is far from satisfactory. For example, the auditor general has recently reported a 55 per cent growth since 2015 in the number of patients whose follow-up appointments are delayed twice as long as they should be. Now, one area where targets are currently being met is in radiology, but this is because health boards are increasingly outsourcing to the private sector. The auditor general's report notes that waiting time performance has been helped by securing additional capacity from the private sector in response to what he describes as

'difficulties with recruitment and retention of staff, outdated and insufficient scanning equipment, along with IT weaknesses' within the NHS. Isn't what is happening at the moment a policy of privatisation by stealth as a sticking plaster to mask longer term structural problems within the Welsh NHS?

Well, I couldn't really disagree with the Member more. Clearly, we have to arrange for services to be delivered in the best possible fashion, but there is a clear, determined, publicly stated, open and transparent principle at stake, which is: where possible, we deliver it by public sector staff, free at the point of delivery. Clearly, there are some instances where we have to use private sector providers in the short term in order to cover off to make sure that the service is delivered, and the Member would be the first to stand on his feet and criticise us if we didn't do that. But there's clearly not a route to privatisation on a wholesale basis, as he suggests. 

Well, look, leader of the house, there may be an argument, obviously, for using private sector capacity in an emergency, but it's not how you build a sustainable NHS. Long-term planning requires you to train the workforce, buy the equipment needed, so you have the capacity to meet the demands in the future. Now, in fact, spending on the use of private sector providers has gone up substantially on your Government's watch. In 2011, it was at £14 million; last year it was £38.5 million. Now that's a 260 per cent increase over the last seven years. The Labour Party in England, under Jeremy Corbyn, has pledged to end the use of private sector provision in the NHS completely; that was the policy here. Isn't this yet another case of Labour saying one thing in opposition at Westminster and doing the opposite in Government here in Wales? And let's—[Interruption.] Let's put—[Interruption.] Let's put Jeremy Corbyn to one side for a second. Aren't you reneging on Bevan's values and your own vision?

Well, Llywydd, I can do no better than to repeat what I said: of course we are not doing that. The Welsh Government is utterly committed to delivering the NHS as a public service free at the point of use. Of course we sometimes have to use private contractors to fill off service difficulties and of course we are doing exactly as he suggested we should do, which is training the largest number of staff we can into the biggest number of training places that we have ever had in order to fill that off. And, actually, we're absolutely four square with the Labour Party at a UK level on this. We absolutely abhor privatisation of the NHS, and it's certainly not the principle or policy of this Government. 

The leader of the UKIP group, Gareth Bennett.

Diolch, Llywydd. On the weekend, I had the pleasure of using local train services across northern England and Scotland. The trains ran on time, services connected with one another, and there were plenty of seats for people to sit on. I think it's fair to say that people using trains in Wales aren't receiving quite the same treatment. Leader of the house, are you and your Government in full agreement with Transport for Wales's director of customer services, Bethan Jelfs, when she said recently that customers must 'share the pain' of the recent rail disruption?

No. Of course, we are very sorry indeed, as many people have said in the Chamber over the last week or so, to find ourselves in the position where Transport for Wales has inherited a fleet of trains, very substandard and substantially not what we'd expect—frankly, from years and years and years of underinvestment by the private sector. So, we have a very firm recovery plan in place. The Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Transport met with the chief executive officer of Transport for Wales last week to seek assurance that that recovery plan was there. It was confirmed at that meeting that Transport for Wales and Network Rail have operationalised a full recovery plan to manage the situation and that we will be receiving regular updates from the CEO of Transport for Wales on progress against that plan. 

The engineers from Transport for Wales and from Network Rail are working around the clock to resume services as soon as possible. We've only had the franchise for just under a month; we cannot correct the underinvestment of 15 years in four weeks. 

Yes, I appreciate the problems that were inherited by Transport for Wales, of course, but I do wonder whether some of the things that Transport for Wales have recently been presiding over are difficulties of their own making. For instance, it's been well publicised that around 25 to 30 per cent of the fleet covering Wales and borders has been removed for servicing and repair. Of course, I realise that train wheels are subject to wear and tear, which might be accelerated by leaves on the line during the autumn of any year. Given that this is a difficulty faced by all train franchises every single year, surely the way in which Transport for Wales's well-paid officers should be dealing with this is by expecting and anticipating this issue, and then planning for it in advance. Most rail users simply don't understand why 25 per cent of the fleet had to be withdrawn all at the same time this autumn. Why could the withdrawal not be staggered to, say, 5 per cent at a time over five weeks, rather than 25 per cent all at once in a week? 

Actually, Transport for Wales have done an absolutely fantastic job, and 10 per cent of the fleet is now back in action again. So, I think, actually, they're to be praised for the swiftness of their response. Clearly, there are real issues with keeping trains that are substandard in operation that I don't have to reiterate to the Member. We are working very hard to make sure that the fleet is back in action. As I say, the operational recovery plan is in place; the Cabinet Secretary is receiving regular updates. We very much want to make sure that the service to the people of Wales is as good as it possibly can be as we go into the autumn.  

Well, I'm glad to hear that, leader of the house, and I hope that the fleet is back in good condition in good time for the passengers, and I hope the passengers will get the benefits of that. Passengers at the moment, though, are not just frustrated about train delays. In recent weeks, I've had complaints from constituents that, during morning rush hour, there have been long queues of passengers in Cardiff stretching right across the station. The queues comprise passengers who've completed their journeys, but were unable to buy a ticket either at their starting train station or from a member of staff on the train, so they had to go to the unpaid fares counter at Cardiff Central station. The time it took to get through this queue was sometimes averaging 20 minutes to 30 minutes. Now, we had issues with the previous operator, Arriva Trains Wales, whereby they were threatening to fine lots of people hundreds of pounds for not having valid tickets and then, of course, it transpired that many of the ticket machines on their unstaffed stations weren't actually working. So, now we seem to be going through a whole new ticketing palaver with the new operator. Now, I know it's early days, leader of the house—we all accept that—but what can you do to assure the rail users that the new service is not going to simply go on replicating all the problems of the old one?  

Very much part of the new franchise is to move to the ticketless system that you see—. If you go to Transport for London, for example, almost all of the services are ticketless, so we'll be moving to that. The investment is very much there. That's very much part of the plan—to move to ticketless operations as fast as possible.