The following amendment has been selected: amendment 1 in the name of Julie James.

That brings us to the next item, which is the Welsh Conservatives debate on Welsh Government performance, and I call on Paul Davies to move the motion. Paul Davies.

Motion NDM6892 Darren Millar

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1. Regrets that since December 2009:

a) referral-to-treatment waiting times in the Welsh NHS have increased;

b) performance against both the 4 and 12 hour targets in Welsh emergency departments has deteriorated;

c) cancer treatment targets have never been met in Wales;

d) the number of beds in Welsh hospitals has fallen;

e) GCSE performance has deteriorated in Wales with attainment of A*-C grades for summer 2018 the worst since 2005;

f) Wales’s OECD PISA scores are worse in reading, maths and science with the most recent results being worse than in 2009, placing Wales in the bottom half of the OECD global ranking and at the bottom of the UK rankings;

g) scores of Welsh schools have permanently closed;

h) gross disposable household income as a percentage of the UK average has fallen;

i) Wales has had the poorest average wages growth rate of the UK nations;

j) business rates in Wales have become less competitive than other parts of the UK; and

k) the annual number of new homes being built in Wales has fallen.

2. Calls upon the Welsh Government to acknowledge its failures, abandon its failing policies, and to deliver the positive change that Wales needs.

Motion moved.

Diolch Llywydd. On the eve of learning the identity of the new Welsh Labour Party leader, it is timely to reflect on the performance of the Welsh Government under the leadership of the current First Minister—the success, the failures and the lessons for the future. It will be for others to cast judgment on the First Minister's legacy, but today I want to focus specifically on policy and the burgeoning gap between promises and delivery.

For eight and a half of the First Minister's nine years, there has been a Conservative Prime Minister in Downing Street, and for Ministers here, the temptation to play party politics has been too great. Too often, the First Minister has played the role of the leader of the opposition to the UK Government, rather than acting as a leader of a Government here in Wales. In Labour's campaign for the 2011 Assembly election, devolved areas barely got a mention, as they were keen to take advantage of low levels of public awareness of what the Welsh Government's responsibilities were.

Now, of course, it would be churlish not to acknowledge that there have been some successes in the past nine years and areas of agreement between the parties: the 5p carrier bag charge, introduced with cross-party support, has helped change shoppers' behaviour and has reduced the number of single-use carrier bags in circulation; the children's rights Measure and the food hygiene rating system were also introduced in the past nine years. All parties worked together on the successful referendum on further law-making powers for the Assembly—a decision that was followed by the devolution of taxation, empowering this Chamber to make better decisions for the people of Wales. Both those successes have been, I'm afraid, few and far between.

The Welsh Government record since 2009 is, sadly, one of failure and missed opportunities, and no more disastrously than in the national health service. Despite campaigning on a leadership manifesto, promising to protect health spending, Carwyn Jones became the only leader of any modern political party in the UK to inflict real-terms cuts to the NHS. Carwyn Jones's first budget as First Minister took £0.5 billion out of the Welsh NHS. By 2014, the health budget had lost almost 8 per cent in real terms, equating to £1 billion.

The NHS has still not recovered from the legacy of Labour's budget cuts. Today, health boards are facing a record combined deficit of £167.5 million. The impact on waiting times and standards has been devastating. In December 2009, no patient in Wales was waiting any longer than 36 weeks from diagnosis to the start of treatment. Yet today, that figure stands at 13,673. Of these, more than 4,000 patients are currently waiting more than a year for surgery. When Carwyn Jones took office, 224,960 patients were waiting in the queue to start treatment. That queue has doubled to 443,789 patients.

In nine years, some key performance targets have not been met once. The target for 95 per cent of accident and emergency patients to be seen within four hours has not been met since 2009, and performance is getting worse. In October this year, only 80 per cent were seen within four hours, and at Wrexham Maelor Hospital, that figure was just 54 per cent—the worst on record.

Shockingly, the number of patients waiting over 12 hours to be seen in A&E has risen by 4,000 per cent since 2009. Earlier this year, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine described the situation in A&E in Wales as 'dire' and 'horrific' with an experience for patients which is 'unsafe, undignified and distressing'. Capacity in the NHS has shrunk with the number of beds falling year on year to the lowest on record today—2,000 fewer beds than in 2009, and in some health boards, the bed occupancy rate is breaching safe limits on a daily basis. This decline in NHS performance has coincided with Welsh Government decisions to continue to downgrade and centralise NHS services, forcing patients to travel further for vital care, and putting even more pressure on retained services. NHS cuts, closures and downgrades—that's what we've seen since December 2009.

Now, a commitment was made by the First Minister during his leadership campaign to spend 1 per cent above the block grant on education every year until the per pupil funding gap between Wales and England had been eliminated. Nine years on and the funding gap still remains, and the education budget is 7.9 per cent smaller in real terms than it was in 2011. In the 10 years to 2016, 157 schools closed, mainly in rural Wales, and, across the country today, 40 per cent of schools are facing a budget deficit. This is despite the fact that the Welsh Government receives £1.20 for every £1 spent on schools in England. GCSE performance has deteriorated since 2009, with the gold standard of five A* to C grades falling this year to its lowest level since 2005. Wales has declined in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Programme for International Student Assessment tests, with worse scores in reading, maths and science, with the most recent results placing Wales in the bottom half of the OECD ranking, and ranked the worst in the UK. Targets and timescales to improve Wales's education system position have all been quietly dropped, ditched and changed to cover the tracks of failure.

Under the current First Minister's watch, another target, for Wales to reach 90 per cent of UK average gross value added by 2010, was dropped. Wales still has seen has the lowest wage growth of any UK nation. Opportunities to create the conditions for indigenous small business growth and greater inward investment have been missed in favour of trying to control and over-tax business. The Welsh Government's business rates regime has led to Wales having the UK's highest high-street vacancy rate, with too many vacant and boarded-up premises. Wales is now the most expensive part of the UK in which to do business. However, it is good to see, from yesterday's comments in the budget debate, that the Welsh Government is finally listening to our calls for action on this. Nevertheless, this Labour Government still fails to recognise that low-tax economies are more vibrant, more competitive, and, actually, generate more revenue because of the greater viability of setting up a business. Creating the conditions in which businesses can prosper, and investors are attracted to set up in Wales, should have been a far greater priority over the last nine years, to generate growth and increase prosperity levels.

Labour has failed to deliver a fit-for-purpose public transport network, so there remains no proper alternative to the car. The jury's still out on the success or otherwise of the new franchise, although it's fair to say its start has been, at best, shaky. Numerous major road projects have been delayed by ministerial dithering, while many of those that did get built fell victim to massive overspends, including the Heads of the Valleys dualling.

Inadequate mobile signals and broadband infrastructure are still a problem, given the slow progress on addressing notspots.

Creating the conditions for economic growth would have gone some way to tackling cyclical poverty, which still blights too many of our communities. The flagship pledge to eradicate child poverty was dropped, while evidence shows that the hundreds of millions of pounds that poured into Communities First had no impact on prosperity levels, and, after 20 years of Labour, these communities remain as poor as ever.

The current First Minister has made home ownership further out of reach for many, including denying social housing tenants the right to buy their property. House building has been constrained by red tape, creating a housing supply crisis, which has driven up prices and made getting a step on the property ladder more difficult. Sadly, this has been a Government that spent billions treating the symptoms of poverty rather than properly investing in the preventative agenda to give the next generation better prospects than the last. The last nine years have been blighted by mismanagement, particularly in Betsi Cadwaladr University Local Health Board, not to mention the Regeneration Investment Fund for Wales and the All Wales Ethnic Minority Association scandals, by indecision and inaction over business rate reform, the M4 relief road, and a lack of house building, and by poor decision-making, cutting the NHS budget and scrapping the right to buy.

For the sake of the 3 million people we serve, Wales needs original ideas, a fresh approach and new leadership. While I wish the First Minister well for the future, I am more convinced than ever that, to fulfil its true potential, Wales needs a new Government, and I urge Members to support our motion.

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Ann Jones) took the Chair.

Thank you. I have selected the amendment to the motion, and I call on the Leader of the House and Chief Whip to move formally the amendment tabled in her own name. 

Amendment 1—Julie James

Delete all after Wales and replace with:

1. Recognises:

a) Almost nine out of 10 people are treated within the target time of 26 weeks

b) Investment in the Welsh NHS is at record levels

c) More people are surviving cancer than ever in Wales and receiving treatment within the target time

d) The proportion of pupils awarded the top GCSE grades at A* to A increased to 18.5% in 2018

e) 8.7% of pupils were awarded A* at A-level in 2018 – the best results in Wales since the grade was introduced in 2010

f) Gross disposable household income in 2016 was £15,835 per person, equivalent to 81.5% of the UK GDHI, up from 2015

g) Gross weekly earnings in 2018 for full-time employees working in Wales have increased by 2.1% since 2017

h) 1.5m people were employed in Wales in the three months to September 2018, up 4.2% on the same period a year earlier—the largest increase of any UK country or region

i) Three-quarters of small business in Wales receive help with rates bills and half pay no non-domestics rates at all

j) 20,000 new affordable homes will be built with Welsh Government funding this Assembly term.

2. Thanks the First Minister for his leadership and his work during his nine years in office.

Amendment 1 moved.

Formally. 

Thank you. Rhun ap Iorwerth.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I understand, of course, what would motivate the Conservatives to table a motion such as this one. We are approaching the end of the tenure of the current First Minister—we could have presented a list of failings ourselves. But I think it says a great deal about the Conservatives that, in this lengthy list, there is no reference to child poverty, homelessness, carbon emissions, and so on and so forth. The Welsh Government, through its amendment, responds in the way that we perhaps would have expected, listing a long list of statistics without any context, or statistics that have been used—let’s talk plainly here—in a way that’s misleading, and that’s to justify their actions. I can refer to the 20,000 affordable homes that they refer to. Of course, that includes homes sold through Help to Buy—Wales, where a third of the homes have been sold at over £200,000, which can’t be categorised as affordable, however you look at it.

So, we’ll leave the Conservatives and the Government to play ping-pong today. We will abstain in this vote, but I will take this opportunity to make a few of my own comments—not in listing in the unimaginative way the Conservatives have done, but I will look at some of the fundamental factors that are problematic in the way that Labour, under this current First Minister, have sought to govern Wales. There are patterns and themes that emerge regularly, which have been highlighted in a series of committee reports, by the auditor general, and by the various commissions and task and finish groups that the Government itself has established to mask its lack of action.

I’ll start with all of those task and finish groups and review panels, many of them unnecessary. They are put in place time and time again as a delaying tactic, to avoid making decisions. Let’s look at homelessness and the scrapping of priority need, which is now the subject of another review. Well, why another review? The Government commissioned Cardiff University to review homelessness law in 2012, and the recommendation was to scrap priority need, and nothing has happened. What happens is that people in this cold winter are still sleeping rough, and dying on our streets, because of delays by the Government in making decisions.

There are other themes. Targets—there is reference in the motion, and in the Government’s amendments, to targets. Well, we can see what’s happening in terms of those targets. The Government’s targets, time and time again, are set lower than England and Scotland—they are still missed, by the way—and that in an attempt to make the Government look as though they were performing well. There’s a lack of ambition—that’s the core problem here, I think. Take the Government’s claim in its amendment that almost nine in 10 patients are treated within 26 weeks. Well, the real figure is 77 per cent on average, over the past two years, according to StatsWales. It’s not nine in every 10. In Scotland and England, 18 weeks is the target, and, at least in Scotland, almost nine in 10 patients do truly start their treatment within 18 weeks.

Another problem is the Government’s unwillingness to learn from good practice. The Williams Commission stated that good practice travels poorly within this Government. How many times have we heard about good practices on a small scale that haven’t been rolled out? Now, I could go on—time is short.

However, one thing that struck me earlier this afternoon—one of the fundamental problems of this Government is its unwillingness to lead. This Government follows, far too often. And I heard a Cabinet Secretary speaking earlier about his staunch support for the devolution of policing and justice. Well, I’m delighted that the Government supports that now, but they’re behind the curve. We in Plaid Cymru are pleased, anyway, at seeing the Government following us and supporting our views on that issue or on taxation of sugary drinks, but it’s very frustrating to see the Government missing these opportunities to make a real difference to the lives of people.

The Conservatives: well, bring your own ideas to the table too. A negative list such as this one, without proposing any alternatives, never looks any good in the view of the public.

It is the legacy of the First Minister that's in the spotlight today. It's only this week we've produced our own policy on how to improve housing and provision for that in Wales, so you can't say that we're without ideas. It's just today is not the day for them. You'll be getting plenty from us in the next couple of years—don't you worry about that. 

Predictably, of course, had the First Minister himself been here today, he would have tried to respond to the deficiencies in his Government just by blaming the UK Government, but education has been thoroughly devolved for the last 20 years, and actually—and I think I'm probably more likely to get it from you, leader of the house—I'd rather hear an analysis of what you think has gone right or wrong on his watch when it comes to education. 

I can quickly talk about money, because there is a connection there with the UK Government, and, of course, the Welsh Government's well-oiled wheedle of not having enough money—we say year-on-year funding increase; you say real-term cuts. But both positions prompt the question of how Welsh Government has chosen to spend what it does get on giving children the first chance of a better future. In his leadership campaign, the First Minister recognised that education in Wales was getting a poor deal from his own Government at that point, and it wasn't the UK. His pitch included a commitment, and I quote, 'to spend 1 per cent above the block grant every year until we reach a situation where we have parity of funding per head of pupils in England.' 

Well, we still don't have that parity of funding per pupil nine years later, and England's own figures have dropped in the meantime. What we have had in that time, certainly in the time I've been here, is a 7.9 per cent real-terms decrease—and it's you that like the real-term figures—in the gross budgeted expenditure for education, and a 7.5 per cent real-terms cut in per pupil spend. You get 20 per cent more to spend per person than in England, yet, for years, you have spent less per pupil than England. That is undeniable, and we are now in a place where Labour councils are saying that they are no longer in a position to protect school spending. Welsh Government's had nine years to keep that promise on which the First Minister was elected, first as leader of his party, and then as leader of the nation, and that is a promise that has not been kept. On his own terms, that is a failure.

But education's not just about money, in case anyone was thinking that; it is about a wider culture of competitive standards, the creation of an ambitious and fulfilled workforce, including educators themselves, and, most of all, resilient, healthy, creative children and adults who are interested in this world and want to contribute to it to the best of their abilities. And while Welsh Government needs money, of course, the success of education is every bit as much about the philosophy and the policy direction. The effects of years of Labour policy—well, we've rehearsed them many times; Paul Davies mentioned some of them. For the fourth time in a decade we're behind the other UK nations on PISA results—the most recent being even worse than 2009—specifically in reading, maths and science, and, this year's A to C grade at GCSE, which were down again on last year, itself the lowest year of achievement since 2006, it was maths, English, biology, chemistry and physics, as well as Welsh language, mirroring those PISA results, despite being measured in a completely different way. Forty-five education institutions across Wales are in special measures or in need of significant improvement; one there for four years. As Estyn says in yesterday's report: 

'Despite various initiatives, including banding and categorisation...not enough is done to support them',  meaning these schools, or to develop sustainable strategies for schools. And with so much effort and money going into these various initiatives, especially on standards—we're talking about regional consortia, Schools Challenge Cymru; Jenny Rathbone was talking about that earlier—why are more than half our secondary schools still stuck with inspection reports that aren't good or excellent? Now, this is a year-on-year failure in the time that I've been in this place.

Thousands of children and young people's parents and grandparents went through an education system envied and respected not just in the UK but around the world, and those children are now denied the same privilege, because it's being run by a Labour administration with its eye off the ball, a belated mea culpa from the First Minister and a bureaucratic approach to raising standards. It will not be enough to say that more young people have GCSEs, or their equivalent, than in the 1990s. Not only is that true of the rest of the UK, but the rest of the UK have done a stellar job in comparison. I have come to this portfolio to face a tsunami of reviews—a tsunami of reviews—on which, by the way, if you want more money—I don't know where the education Cabinet Secretary is at the moment—get your act together on the Reid review. There is plenty of money waiting for us there, if you follow those recommendations.

I think this ruck of reviews is a sign that Welsh Government accepts that it's got it very wrong, for a very long time, and that it needs to start from scratch. That's certainly what it feels like. So, for our young people and their future, though, a change of party leader doesn't meet a change in substance. All the reviews in the world won't change a thing with the same dead hand on the tiller of the sinking ship that is Labour Wales.

I support this motion. Under Labour, the people of Wales have had to endure a crumbling health service, a failing education system and economic and local government policies that make no business sense whatsoever. Once again, Labour have tabled a series of amendments that show they're in complete denial about the problems they have caused and, regrettably, I have to say that it's their propensity to indulge in denial that causes many of these problems to go unchecked.

The Welsh Government are boasting in point e) of their amendments that A-level students had the best results this year since 2010. That's good news, of course, but the PISA results of 2016, as mentioned already, paint a rather different picture from the rosy one presented in Labour's amendment. The results in reading and science were worse in 2016 than they were in 2006, and although, in maths, there was a marginal improvement, it was only of six points in 10 years, which is hardly stellar improvement, is it?

In Wales, the percentage of pupils considered top performers across reading, maths and science is less than half that across the border in England. Literacy and numeracy are essential basics of education, and if the Welsh Labour Government can't ensure that pupils are both literate and numerate enough to enable them to learn the skills and disciplines they need to succeed in life and to be financially independent in adult life, there is scant hope that they can get much else right either.

The Welsh Government needs to get its priorities right and focus on the basics instead of trying to criminalise parents, dictating the values children are taught and interfering with the dynamics of the parent-child relationship for no other reason than value signalling and an elitist attitude that they know better than the parents. It is no measure of their ability to govern if something that may be the best it has been for seven or eight years is still worse than it was 12 years ago.

In point f), they state that disposable income in 2016 was higher than in 2015, and in point g), they say that wages have increased by 2.1 per cent. All of this might sound really positive until you remember that they've been in power in Wales for 20 years. That boast about wage rises is simple in the extreme when you consider that inflation is currently at 2.4 per cent. In real terms, Welsh workers have had a pay cut, but Labour don't just deny it, they try to spin it as an increase. No doubt, Labour will say that the people endorse them as they keep returning them to power, yet, they didn't exactly win the last election. At the moment, they cling to a majority in this place thanks to the outsourcing of two Cabinet positions to get their policies through, and this isn't the first time that Welsh Labour have had to be propped up by someone else.

Their inability to run public bodies can be proven in no better way than the ongoing scandal that is Betsi Cadwaladr. Labour have taken direct control of the health board and still waiting times for some services are getting worse. If their direct involvement makes it worse, or results in little or no improvement, how can they possibly claim to be the right people to set the overall strategies and targets for the NHS or anything else? As population figures rise, hospital beds reduce in comparison with that population, as do training places for doctors and nurses. Welsh Labour refuse to make the hard decisions necessary to put the failing NHS boards back on track. That's the Labour version of the NHS.

As competition from talented youngsters across the border, at home and abroad, increases, Welsh schools sit at the bottom of the UK PISA rankings. That's Labour's version of an education system. As fewer and fewer people vote Labour, they deny it's because of anything they're doing wrong, and insist they don't need to change, and when the people of Wales vote to leave the EU, they rewrite history, patronise the electorate, accuse their opponents of lying and plan a way to thwart the will of the people. That's Labour's version of a democracy for you.

Finally, failing policies across the board, a disrespect for the electorate and a never-ending stream of weasel words deflecting blame. That's Labour's version of Government, and it's well past time for change to give the people of Wales what they need and deserve. That's why I'm supporting this motion. Thank you.

Sir Christopher Wren was the leading architect of London's reconstruction after the great fire in 1666. He lays buried beneath the floor of his most famous building, St Paul's cathedral. An elaborate dome marks the site of his burial. Instead, there is an inscription on the floor and it says,

'If you are searching for his monument, look around.'

Deputy Presiding Officer, if we were to look around at Wales today for the First Minister's monument, it would be a much less edifying prospect. We would see the sad result of another nine wasted years of Welsh Labour Government. Nine years ago, the First Minister set out his vision for Wales in his leadership manifesto. It was called 'Time to Lead'. Launching his manifesto, the First Minister said

'Our priority has to be that we protect public services like the NHS and education'. 

The reality, however, is somewhat—very different. 

During his period in office, the First Minister has inflicted real-terms cuts to the health budget in Wales. Key performance targets have not been met. In December 2009, not one patient waited longer than 36 weeks for treatment. Today, the figure is more than 13,500. More than 4,000 of these patients have been waiting more than a year for surgery. In December 2009, 225,000 patients were waiting to start treatment. Today, nearly 444,000 are waiting on waiting lists. Performance against both the four- and 12-hour targets in Welsh emergency departments has deteriorated. The urgent cancer treatment referral target that says patients referred by the urgent route should start treatment in 62 days has never been met under this First Minister. 

In 'Time to Lead', the First Minister pledged to increase education spending by 1 per cent above the block grant. However, since 2011, his Welsh Government has delivered real-terms cuts in education spending. GCSE performance has worsened. This summer saw the worst attainment of GCSE top grades since 2005. The international PISA assessment reveals Wales has the worst performing education system in the United Kingdom. PISA scores for reading, maths and science are worse than in 2009, placing Wales in the bottom half of the OECD global ranking. In the 10 years between 2006 and 2016, Welsh Government closed 157 schools, mostly in rural areas.

Will you take an intervention?

Go on.

Would you agree with the OECD viewpoint, strongly made, that Wales is moving in the right direction in regard to its education reforms?

I am just giving you the facts and figures that are actually in the world domain. Interviewed by the Western Mail at his manifesto launch, Carwyn Jones said

'We know that education is the route out of poverty for many people in Wales.'

Thanks to his education policies, the First Minister has put considerable obstacles in the way to block that route.

I would like to mention another pledge made in 'Time to Lead', namely to increase the building of new affordable and council hosing. On his watch, the number of homes being built annually in Wales has fallen. Successive administrations under his leadership have failed to build enough homes to meet Wales's ongoing housing crisis. Over the past decade, the number of new homes being built has fallen from over 10,000 a year in 2008 to just 6,000 this year. The First Minister has set a target of building 20,000 affordable homes, but, given his record of failing to meet targets on the NHS and education in Wales, what confidence can we have in this Government's ability to deliver enough new homes?  

Will you take an intervention? 

Go on then. 

You've got a long shopping list of things you'd like more money put into. Could you tell us what you think should receive less funding in order to pay for it? 

The thing is, Wales hasn't seen any other side of the coin. It's only the Labour Party's performance I'm telling you about. Wales does not need a new Labour Government. Wales needs a new Government here.

There are 200,000 poor children living in poverty in Wales—200,000. On poverty, the economy, families, ethnicity and disability, we are worse than the United Kingdom. There's a long list of material deprivation, persistent poverty, poverty in different areas and deprivation in the south Wales Valleys. You still haven't woken up since Margaret Thatcher. Basically, you can say many things about it, but you are the ones running the Government since 1999, and nothing has been done, and it's shame on the Welsh Labour Government altogether.   

I will be voting for the amendment to this motion tabled by Julie James AM. 

The Tory motion is both cynical and politically opportunistic. The Tory motion is also fundamentally flawed. We know, do we not, that since 2009 there have been two National Assembly for Wales elections. Both times the Welsh nation has gone to the polls, and both times democratically following the elections a Welsh Labour Government has been formed. The Welsh people are no fools. They do not support the Welsh Labour Party out of blind obedience. We are talking about a Welsh populace with a great collective memory of their history and our progressive future. The Welsh Labour Party works to renew the immense bond that exists between it and the Welsh people, and we will continue to do so with fresh policies, like disbarring nurseries from business rates and the best childcare offer of the UK.  

The last decade has been dominated by the UK Tory Government's policies of imposed austerity. Purposeful cuts to the Welsh budget, purposeful cuts to the welfare safety net, growing poverty and inequality, purposeful cuts to the public sector, who often deal with the most vulnerable in our society. And austerity—the name itself is actually a stroke of purposeful genius, somehow not a chosen cuts policy, but an inevitable default position of others. Austerity has been a vicious, determined ideological attack on the state's ability to intervene, to support the poorest in society with the levers of the UK, as highlighted by not one but two UN reports on the severe state of poverty inflicted by the UK Conservative Government on its people.

Despite sustained Tory attack, devolution, Welsh Labour and our Government have afforded some protection for the Welsh people from a right-wing Tory Government's policies. In the dark shadow of this inflicted austerity, the Welsh Labour Government has secured 83,000 more people in work since 2010; £1.4 billion of investment via the twenty-first century schools programme; 41 new schools, including the impressive £22 million Islwyn High School in my constituency; the lowest diagnostic waits since 2010; Wales leading the UK on household recycling, and rated in the top three of the world. In the last Assembly, we delivered 10,000 new affordable homes in this Assembly, and we are on target to deliver 20,000 more.

Welsh Labour has done all this in the shadow of a greed-driven global recession, and the longest period of self-inflicted austerity in living memory. And that has been the Conservatives who have propagated that via their weakening of our financial regulations previously, and all against the uncertainty of a Brexit that will also deliver on national insecurity.

The Welsh Government's overall budget in 2019 is down 5 per cent, or £850 million in real terms compared to 2010-11, something not deserved by our people, and also, again, as a result of the Welsh Conservatives' policy. The Welsh Government's revenue budget in 2019 is down 4 per cent, or £650 million in real terms compared to 2010-11. The Welsh Government's capital budget for 2019-20 is down 10 per cent or £200 million in real terms compared to 2010-11. When it comes to leadership, Welsh Labour and our succession of leaders have offered and delivered principled leadership. Compare that to the strength and stability of the chaotic mess that we are seeing in London from Theresa May and the rest of the ragbag UK Tory Government.

I can assure the Welsh people that the next Welsh Labour First Minister will continue to stand up for Wales and deliver on our strong socialist and ethically principled leadership and our sound socialist policy in action. Thank you.

I think it was quite telling at the start of this debate, when the Government bench had one Minister on it, and the back bench had one member of the governing party to defend its actions in a debate that was looking back over the last nine years, back to 2009. That in itself tells you its own story of engagement by the governing party in debates here this afternoon.

It is a pleasure to stand up here today, and it is also worth reflecting on the activities and achievements of the current First Minister. This time next week, he will not be the First Minister, and someone who has occupied a role for nine years and been at the centre of Government for the principal part of devolution—I think he came into Government in 2000-01—is worthy of any recognition and praise as well, because that is an intensity in public office that really does warrant sufficient observation from opposition parties and the governing party as well, that someone's dedicated themselves to public service.

But it is right, also, to reflect on missed opportunities, especially over a sustained period of time. Sometimes, instead of looking at the big issues, you sometimes need to look at the very small issues and work up from the small issues to the big issues. Today, for example, I was in the town of Barry, where there has been a vigorous campaign around the incinerator that has been located there, which has been granted planning permission through the normal process. The environment Minister, back in February, agreed to consider imposing an environmental impact assessment on that incinerator. I raised the question with the leader of the house yesterday, and, some 300 days later, that community is still waiting for that decision from the Government. If you are in Government, you've got the ability to do things. You have the ability—as Mohammad Asghar referred to on the front page of the First Minister's manifesto, 'Time to Lead'—to lead, and actually make a positive impact in communities. In respect of that particular community, that inertia in making this decision epitomises much of the bigger stuff that the First Minister, and indeed his successive Governments, have failed to achieve for Wales.

You cannot walk away from the successive PISA tables that have shown, regrettably, that we have not enjoyed the success in education that we all want to see—take the politics out of it; we all want to see a better education system. It's not much good saying, 'We can wait till 2022 when the new curriculum comes in.' What about the generation that's going through schools at the moment? I'm a father of four kids. They get one go around the track, they do, and you want to give them the best chance possible. So, what are we saying: 'The last 20 years—oh, well, sorry about that, but we'll get it right for the next generation'?

The international figures do not lie. And, you know, a bit of reflection from the governing party and the governing benches wouldn't go amiss on where things have gone wrong and where we can put things right. I am the first one to acknowledge that twenty-first century schools has made an improvement in schools the length and breadth of this country, but it is a fat lot of good having shiny new buildings if the outcomes coming out of those shiny new buildings aren't replicated in the achievements of our young people. I am as ambitious as anyone for our young people to achieve the best that they possibly can in their lives, but it has to be on the scorecard that the Government could have done better.

If you look at the economy over the last couple of years, it is a fact that Welsh workers are taking less home today compared to their Scottish counterparts when they started in 1999—£55 a week less, in fact. Now, the governing party talk about austerity. I have not heard an alternative put forward for how we could have cleaned up the mess that Gordon Brown left of a public sector borrowing requirement of £160 billion that is coherent and would have kept the confidence of the markets so that we wouldn't have seen a massive recession. But what I have seen is the economic policies of successive Labour Governments in Wales deliver poorer take-home pay as opposed to improved take-home pay in other parts of the United Kingdom. It is a fact: we are the lowest take-home pay economy of the United Kingdom. That is a fact. You cannot deny that.

When it comes to the NHS, it is a fact that a political decision was taken in 2011-12 to cut health spending here in Wales. That was a political decision that was taken. It is the only Government in the United Kingdom, and, indeed, the First Minister is the only leader of a Government who has taken that conscious decision to cut spending. And the argument at the time was that that money needed to go into other columns to support other services, and that is fine if that's what the political choice is, but the fact of the matter is that decision was taken and the Government has to reap the consequences because of it. In 2009, for example, the 36-week wait in the Welsh NHS was zero—zero. Today, it is 13,500 people waiting 36 weeks or more to have treatment. That is the measure that people use to measure the success of the NHS, of how timely they can be seen when they are presented with an illness or condition. And that, on the scorecard, has to be marked down as a failure.

So, I am more than willing to stand here and praise the public service of the current First Minister—a record that deserves to be praised—but the successive Governments that he has led have failed to achieve the real improvements that were promised at the start of devolution and through the time of the Governments that he has led. Now, that's not the fault of devolution: it's the political choices that have been taken, and let's reflect on that, because the next week is a time for reflection and a time to get onside and actually change the record so that we change the outcomes. And that's why I hope this Assembly will support the motion before them this afternoon.

Can I now call the Leader of the House and Chief Whip, Julie James?

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Well, I would very much like to begin by thanking the Conservatives for bringing forward this debate today because it's given us a timely opportunity to reflect and celebrate the significant progress successive Welsh Labour Governments—so, that's successively elected by the Welsh people, Welsh Labour Governments—have made during Carwyn Jones's time as First Minister. As our amendment says, this is an opportunity to thank him for his work and leadership as First Minister, a First Minister that I, for one, have been very proud to serve.

For nine years, the First Minister has led the Welsh Government through some of the most difficult times this country and, indeed, the UK as a whole has experienced since the end of the second world war: hard times that the Conservatives would very much like us never to mention again. Those nine years have been punctuated by a global recession, followed by the longest period of austerity in living memory, which, let us not forget, the UN's special rapporteur on poverty last month described as a political choice by the UK Conservative Government.

And the final years of this FM's tenure have been dominated by Brexit, the proverbial catfight in the Conservative Party, not to mention the chaos caused by the Prime Minister's flip-flop negotiations and those members of the Tory Party once described by a member of David Cameron's inner circle as 'swivel-eyed loons'. The Government was defeated three times yesterday in the Houses of Parliament: not something to be proud of.

Deputy Presiding Officer, through all of this, successive Welsh Labour-led Governments have maintained their commitment to work towards a more prosperous Wales and have delivered for the people of Wales. Yesterday, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance set out again in the draft budget debate the impact austerity has had on our budget. It bears repeating today.

Will the Member give way?

Yes, certainly, Janet.

With all due respect, you represent Swansea as a constituency—Swansea West, yes—and I cannot be alone here in receiving e-mails daily about our failing health system in Wales. When you have a constituent who comes to you with such delayed treatment times, such a lack of co-ordination within our health services, do you turn around and say, 'It's the UK Government's fault, it's austerity', or are you truthful, telling them that you run the health service here in Wales? Where is the reality in this debate, Julie?

Well, that is the reality. I was about to come on and say. But, actually, if you really want to know what I say to my constituents in Swansea, Janet, I say that the Tory Government has cancelled electrification; it's cancelled the Swansea bay tidal lagoon; they cannot deal with any of the infrastructure problems. It is an absolute shambles. So, you asked the question: that's the answer you're getting.

So, as I said, yesterday, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance set out again in the draft budget debate the impact austerity has had on our budget. 

Thank you. I'd like to hear the leader of the house. Thank you. 

It bears repeating today: if we were not a penny better off in real terms than we were in 2010, we would have £850 million more to invest in front-line services today. Now, if spending—

It is a serious point. You've just said exactly what you tell your constituents. I agree with you entirely on the damage that has been caused by a decade of Tory austerity, but surely you cannot duck the blame and duck the responsibility of decisions taken by Welsh Government on health and other matters.

I'll come on to that, Rhun.

If spending on public services had kept pace with the growth in the economy since 2010, we would have an extra £4 billion to spend on public services in Wales. And if the UK Conservative Government had matched the level of investment in public services achieved by every Government for the last 50 years, Wales would have £8 billion more to spend.

And what would have happened if the Labour Government had been returned in 2010 and Mr Darling's spending plans had been put into effect? How would that have affected your current spending?

Well, as you know, David, Gordon Brown had already turned the economy around and we had growth. The Conservative Party choked that in its infancy immediately. So, I don't have any worries at all of what would have happened there. The Tory Party that followed was one of the most fiscally irresponsible in the history of Great Britain.

Llywydd, in the face of this global recession, austerity and Brexit, ours is a Government that has, and continues to deliver for Wales in every aspect of devolved life. More people are starting the treatment they need within the target time. Almost 90 per cent of patients wait less than 26 weeks for treatment; cancer survival continues to improve, and the NHS in Wales is consistently seeing and treating more cancer patients than ever before. We now have an £80 million new treatment fund that has delivered faster access to 137 new medicines for a range of life-threatening and life-limiting conditions.

This year, we will complete the hundredth twenty-first century schools project, a real milestone in an ambitious programme that will see us invest more than £3.7 billion in rebuilding our children's schools to give them a better environment for their education. GCSE performance in the very top grades has improved, and the overall pass rate for A-levels is at a historic high. Wales now outperforms England at the top grades.

Our economy has improved. Despite the UK's slow recovery from the recession and the negative impact of UK Government policies, we have seen important improvement, and in some areas, we are outperforming other parts of the UK. There were 1.5 million people in employment in Wales in the three months to September 2018, up 4.2 per cent from the same period a year earlier—the largest increase of any UK country or region. [Interruption.] It's been less than a decade since—. You wanted us not to take the credit for that, but to take the blame for austerity. Cracking, Darren, but not very logical.

It's been less than a decade since we gained primary law-making powers on the FM's watch, and we are using them to lead the way in the UK. We've banned smoking in public outdoor places, legislated to prevent, protect and support victims of gender-based violence, domestic abuse and sexual violence. We introduced the internationally recognised legislation to put the interests of future generations at the forefront of decision making, and legislated for a bilingual Wales. We introduced the first deemed consent system for organ donation in the UK, and we introduced a 5p charge for plastic bags.

At the start of this Assembly term, we set out another ambitious programme for government; we have made good progress in delivering it. We've increased to £40,000 the amount of money people can keep before they have to fund the full cost of their residential care. We have extended the number of places where working parents can access 30 hours of free childcare for their three and four-year-olds, with more than half of local authorities now covered by our pilots.

We are making significant progress towards delivering the 100,000 all-age apprenticeships programme with 16,000 starts in the first half of this year alone. We have delivered the most generous financial package for students in the UK as we continue to provide financial support to our young people and adult learners who wish to continue or return to further education. All Welsh students will now receive support for living costs that is equivalent to the UK national living wage.

Deputy Presiding Officer, we will not be supporting the Conservative motion today. This is a party that continues to insist everything we do is at fault in Wales while failing to acknowledge the terrible mess of its own making the UK Conservative Government is presiding over at Westminster. A Government that you have to wonder, hour by hour, whether it's still in power. It's certainly not in charge. From the welfare cuts to the forced introduction of universal credit, it's left people destitute and starving. From the shambolic introduction of new timetables to the rolling failure that is its rail franchising, from the disappearance of social care from great swathes of middle England to the deterioration in performance of the English NHS, the real failure is the one happening over our border under the watch of the party opposite.

Deputy Presiding Officer, I am proud to have served Carwyn Jones as the First Minister of Wales. His legacy will stand the test of time, which cannot be said for the current serving Prime Minister. We support the amendment. Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you. Can I now call on Mark Isherwood to reply to the debate?

You've caught me slightly unawares; I'm still struggling—lots of horrible notes. May I start by thanking all contributors? Paul Davies referred to some success and some cross-party agreement that pointed out that under Carwyn Jones's Government, Labour was the first party anywhere in the UK to have imposed real-terms cuts to the NHS. He referred to the downgrading, centralisation and closure of NHS services, to the per-pupil funding gap with England remaining, to Labour's target to close the prosperity gap with the rest of UK having been dropped and Wales being the most expensive part of the UK to do business. He pointed out that higher tax revenues to fund public services do not come from high tax economies. He talked about Labour having created a housing supply crisis, and I know first-hand that they ignored warnings going back 15 years that this would result if they didn't take action, which they didn't take. They spent billions, he said, on the symptoms of poverty rather than targeting the causes and said that Wales needs new ideas and new leadership.

Rhun ap Iorwerth referred to Welsh Government's delaying tactics, their repeated reviews rather than action, and he referred to homelessness as one example. He referred to Welsh Government setting targets lower than England and Scotland and then missing them, and about their unwillingness to learn from good practice elsewhere. 

We heard from Suzy Davies—here we are; I found the missing page—[Interruption.] We all lose our pages sometimes, even Members of the Welsh Government. We heard from Suzy Davies who focused on how Welsh Government spends the money it has to spend, rather than simply the amount. She pointed out that, yes, they do get 20 per cent, currently, more per person to spend than in England, and yet spend less on school pupils, that 45 education institutions are in special measures, the bureaucratic approach to raising standards, and referred to the sinking ship that is Labour Wales.

Michelle Brown referred to Welsh Government painting a rosy picture to conceal reality, to Welsh Government's elitist 'we know best' attitude, to Labour only clinging to Government by giving roles to two non-Labour Assembly Members, and to Labour's disrespect for the electorate. 

Mohammad Asghar noted that key performance targets were not being met and that performance had deteriorated in key areas. And he referred again to the failure by successive Welsh Governments to build affordable and council homes, not over five or 10 years, but over two decades.

If I come to Rhianon Passmore—can I thank Rhianon for not giving a shouty speech, although the content was fairly similar? She described facts as flaws, she referred to austerity, so let's hope that the next time a Labour Government thinks it can break the economic cycle, and impose pressure on the regulators in finance to go light-touch, they remember the pain that that will cause successive generations. She referred to the increase in employment in Wales since 2010 when the UK Government came into power after Wales lagging for years and years prior to that, and she referred to the weakening of financial regulations. Well, if you read the successive reports following the financial crash, as I have, you will know that those identify Messrs Blair, Brown and Balls as being the great financial deregulators whose political interference—[Interruption.]—read the report—led to the banking crash, despite being warned years in advance that if they didn't take action, this would be the consequence.

Andrew R.T. Davies talked about missed opportunities and pupils only getting one chance, and that it's no good having shiny new buildings if the outcomes haven't done better. And he referred to 36-week waiting times in the NHS in 2009 being zero, now in their thousands.

The leader of the house, speaking for the Welsh Government, gave what sounded like a very good Welsh Labour conference speech, but she dodged the key political choices taken by almost 20 years of Labour and Labour-led Welsh Government, which have led to the failures outlined in this debate. She referred to the £850 million more that we'd have for front-line services if the money hadn't all gone and the UK's credit line been threatened with closure in 2010. She made reference to the UK Government's apparent non-contribution to Wales—well, they delivered the funding floor to the formula that ensures that Wales gets more per head than in England, they delivered almost £0.75 billion for the city and growth deals in Wales—we're still waiting to hear from the Welsh Government over north Wales—and they provided £10 million for the compound semiconductor applications project in Cardiff, £82 million for a defence contract in Denbighshire, and they're pumping millions into RAF Sealand, by centring the F-35 programme there.

So, let's look at some factual statistics in the time left to us. From recent official reports, Wales is the least productive nation in the UK. Poverty and deprivation are higher in Wales than in any other nation in Britain. Median hourly earnings in Wales are lower than England and Scotland. Average earnings in Wales are lower and have grown slower than in other UK nations. Wales has the lowest long-term pay growth among the nations of the UK. Wales has a higher relative income poverty rate than England, Northern Ireland and Scotland, a higher proportion of working adults in poverty than any other UK nation, and a pensioner poverty rate in Wales far higher than in any other UK nation. Wales is suffering from one of the worst Governments endured by any part of the United Kingdom since the arrival of the universal franchise. Not only that—one of the most reactionary Governments, whose only action is to react against the UK Government and whose only policy is to blame the UK Government for its own serious and successive failures over far too long, fanning the flames of public confusion over their responsibility for the mess we're in and adding to the lack of public accountability that has kept them in place for so long, and so much pain.

Thank you. The proposal is to agree the motion without amendment. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Thank you. We defer voting under this item until voting time.

Voting deferred until voting time.