The next item therefore is the business statement and announcement, and I call the Minister for Finance and Trefnydd, Rebecca Evans.  

Diolch. There's one change to this week's business. The Counsel General and Brexit Minister will make a statement shortly on the UK Government's current proposals for EU withdrawal. Draft business for the next three weeks is set out on the business statement and announcement, which can be found amongst the meeting papers available to Members electronically. 

During the recess, on 27 December, the UK Government launched a consultation proposing that the carrier bag levy should be doubled from 5p to 10p and extended to all shops. Given that Wales originally took the lead on this and the collective wish to drive against plastic waste, can we have a statement from the Welsh Government in response to this, and how it might independently, or in parallel with the consultation in England, propose to go forward on this matter itself? 

Similarly, during recess, there was news from the UK Government that cardiopulmonary resuscitation and first aid training are to be included as part of the school curriculum in England. Could I call therefore for a statement from the Welsh Government in that context where, in February 2017, our colleague Suzy Davies held a debate to propose that all children and young people should receive age-appropriate life-saving skills as part of the school curriculum in Wales, backed by Members of all parties but, thus far, the Welsh Government hasn't delivered on that proposal? Again, we hope that we are not going to have a differentiation across the border, particularly given some of the comments made about borders in a different context earlier. 

Finally, we've heard reference to Wylfa Newydd. Could we have an oral statement, preferably involving the First Minister in the statement, regarding the concerns over Wylfa Newydd if the speculation is borne out later this week, in a decision by Hitachi either to not go ahead, or simply to put proposals on hold? We've had a written statement in which the Minister for Economy and Transport rightly says that Wylfa Newydd is a major project with potentially significant benefits to Anglesey, north Wales and the UK. But we know that, in the past, the new First Minister has himself personally opposed nuclear power, and we know that shortly after he took on his new role, the Welsh Government called in plans to prepare the 740 acre area in Anglesey to build Wylfa Newydd, about which Hitachi's subsidiary, Horizon, said it disagreed with the Welsh Government's reasoning. I am very well advised that that is one of the factors that have led to Hitachi considering the situation currently. This is too important to north Wales, Wales and the UK to simply be dealt with by a written statement, and I call for a proper oral statement in Assembly time, here, so the full Assembly can contribute. Thank you. 

Thank you very much for raising those issues and, in the first part of your contribution, for recognising the leading role that Wales has played in terms of reducing the plastic that we use through the carrier bag levy, which we introduced. I know that the Deputy Minister is now exploring where we do take this next, because, clearly, having led the way, we want to certainly be maintaining the momentum that we have started in this particular area. But not just with plastic carrier bags, of course, but looking at reducing plastic in many other walks of life and aspects of life as well.

In terms of CPR, I know that there are many opportunities currently within the existing curriculum for CPR to be taught to pupils and it's making good progress in terms of the work that's being undertaken for curriculum reform. I know that the Minister is keen to ensure that schools have the flexibility they need to deliver a programme of education to the pupils that's appropriate for them and that will give them the best possible support, and without seeking to overcrowd the curriculum as well. So, there's certainly a balance to be struck there, but the point you make about the importance of CPR is well made.

On the issue of Wylfa Newydd, I know that a written statement has just gone out from the Minister for the economy. There'll be important decisions to be made later this week, as the Minister said in his response to the question on Ford, but he did refer to Hitachi there. So, I'm sure that the Government will explore how best and most appropriately to respond to those decisions that are made later this week.  

Trefnydd, can I support, first of all, the concerns raised earlier about Ford in Bridgend, and I also look forward to further ministerial statements on work done and progress made, because it's a huge issue locally?

My second point is, you will be, Trefnydd, no doubt aware that the Auditor General for Wales has today published a report calling for urgent action following financial and governance concerns within the town and community councils sector in Wales. The report shows that the number of qualified audit opinions has doubled in the past financial year to 340 councils, nearly half of all councils. We also know that the auditor general had to issue reports in the public interest or make formal recommendations to eight councils in 2018. Now, in a sense, this shouldn't come as a huge surprise. We have heard of concerns over a number of years around lack of governance, bullying and of community councils being disbanded due to local in-fighting. The Welsh Government have known of these issues for quite some time. Now, the report by the independent review panel on community and town councils, which reported in October 2018, shows that there are options available to Welsh Government in terms of trying to reform the sector. It is vitally important that the Welsh Government now gets on with that task and gets a grip on this important sector. With that as a backdrop, will the Minister for local government agree to bring forward a statement on the Wales Audit Office findings and use that statement to set out how the Welsh Government intends to ensure that this important tier of democracy is put on a sustainable footing, going forward?

Thank you very much for those issues and for putting on record your concern regarding the announcement relating to Ford. I know that the economy Minister is very much engaged in this issue and will certainly be bringing forward the appropriate updates to Assembly Members as and when that would be useful.

In terms of the report that has been published today regarding town and community councils, I know that the Minister clearly will be considering that report. Members will have the opportunity to question her on that in her question time next week. 

Could I ask for time for one debate and one statement? I wonder if there'll be time for a debate on the importance of grass-roots community groups to regeneration. I attended a meeting last night of the Ogmore valley community forum, which brings together clubs and organisations and residents from all parts of the valley, from Evanstown to Lewistown, Blackmill to Nantymoel and all points in between to develop a shared vision for the valley, based on the priorities they themselves develop. At the next meeting, they're going to work their ideas up, and they're going to bring more young people in to help shape these ideas as well, organised by the very able Councillors Dhanisha Patel and Lee-Anne Hill, the community council chair. A debate will allow us to celebrate the role of these community groups and fora right across the country in regenerating our communities.

Could I also ask for a statement or debate on the importance of culture and traditions to Wales? On Sunday, on Nos Galan, the Mari Lwyd made an appearance at the Corner House pub and restaurant in Llangynwyd. It terrified and delighted the children, who were out way beyond their bedtime, in equal measure, as well as the adults, by the way, who packed this hilltop hostelry out, myself included. Now, the sight of a dancing horse's skull, draped in white sheets and bawdy decorations being led by a singing Gwyn Evans in top hat and tails is part of what makes us very Welsh—it's the uniqueness that draws visitors and tourists to stay with us and spend their money, and it's what reminds us of the Celtic roots, which go deep in our pre-Christian culture. So, I'd like to pay tribute to those who continue these remarkable traditions, sometimes passed down, as in this instance, through generations. And a statement or a debate would allow us to celebrate this and encourage the sustaining of these traditions for many generations to come.

I thank Huw Irranca-Davies for raising both of these important issues and giving us a sense of the vibrancy that's going on every day within our own communities. I'm really delighted to hear particularly about the grass-roots regeneration conversations that are going on at a local level, because this level of engagement is exactly what we envisaged when we set up the Valleys taskforce. It really is a ground-up piece of work, and so what we've heard really describes that kind of ethos.

I'm aware that Councillor Patel has had some very good discussions around the work of the taskforce, and she did speak at length to the former Minister with responsibility for the taskforce. The community hub approach, which you describe, is very much a priority under theme 2 of the taskforce delivery plan, and we know that those community hubs are very much a key asset to us when we're seeking to improve public service delivery. So, following a networking event last year, a community hub working group has been set up to map those existing hubs that already exist across the Valleys, highlighting good practice where it exists, and I think that we've heard of some of that there, and also exploring what communities and organisations need to do to develop a sustainable hub model. So, we're working with the Wales Council for Voluntary Action, county voluntary councils, the Welsh Local Government Association, Interlink RCT, local health boards, the Building Communities Trust, the Learning and Work Institute and others in order to take that piece of work forward, but always with local residents and tenants being at the heart of that.

On the second part of the statement, I absolutely agree that the importance of our culture and traditions is very much what makes us very Welsh, as Huw Irranca-Davies said in his contribution, and we do have a wealth of poetry and prose, and our National Museum of History at St Fagans and the National Library of Wales both have collected this through the years to ensure that this wealth is not lost on us.

May I ask for a statement from the Minister for Housing and Local Government on a matter of great concern to local residents living in Caerphilly County Borough Council? The council plans to increase council tax in the borough by nearly 7 per cent and cut its spending by £50 million. However, last month, the Labour administration voted to spend £242,000 on an investigation into pay rises for senior officers in the borough. This investigation began in 2013 and will have cost the taxpayer over £4 million this year. Please could we have a statement from the Minister on what action she intends to take to protect taxpayers from the consequences of the Labour Party's mismanagement of Caerphilly council?

Thank you for the question. There'll be two opportunities open to you to raise this directly with the Minister for local government. There'll be a statement later this afternoon on the local government settlement and, obviously, opportunities to table questions to the Minister for answer in next week's session.

I'd just like to begin my brief comments by saying how pleased I think Steffan would be to see us just all getting on with things after a very emotional start this afternoon.

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

I'd like to request consideration for two statements, please, Trefnydd. One is with regard to the ongoing problems with Powys County Council's children's services. Now, I'm very grateful for the written statement that we have all received from the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services and, though she's not here, I'd like to put on record my congratulations to her in her new post and welcome somebody with the level of expertise that she has to this role, where I'm sure she'll make an invaluable contribution. But I'm sure that there are many Members in this Chamber who represent Powys, as I do, who will be very concerned at the lack of progress after a whole 12 months of intervention. I wonder, Trefnydd, if you could ask the Deputy Minister whether she'd consider making a statement, perhaps in about eight weeks' time, when the administration at Powys County Council will have had an opportunity to respond to the inspectorate, to respond to concerns that she and her officials are raising, and I'm sure the correspondence that she will have received from me and, I'm sure, other elected Members. Because I suppose my concern is that, after all this time, we have not seen progress and, in the meantime, the childhoods of these children in Powys are passing by without the support to which we would all believe they are entitled, despite, in fairness, the support that I know they have received from the Welsh Government to enable them to address these issues.

The other issue that I would like to ask you to raise with one of your colleagues is that I would like you to ask the health Minister himself if he will make a statement following the press coverage today of the aftermath of the issues in Tawel Fan. Members will have seen the correspondence released under freedom of information with Donna Ockenden, who, of course, conducted the original, very critical report. Now, in that exchange of correspondence with the Minister, Ms Ockenden says, for example,

'My concern is that the BCUHB board and senior management team within mental health at BCUHB do not currently have the capability and capacity to deliver upon the root and branch systemic review that is needed' to make the changes for older people's mental health services. She further then reports a nurse telling her of a recent visit to an elderly persons mental health ward, during which the senior member of staff did not speak at all. The senior member of management did not speak at all, either to a single member of staff or to a patient, though that will be reported as them having actively engaged with the service.

The response from the health board to these concerns in that article—and, of course, it is only a press article—are beyond concerning in their complacency. I believe we need to hear from the Minister about how he responds to those criticisms. Essentially, Ms Ockenden is telling him that no progress has been made in the last six months. How does he respond to those concerns and what steps is he taking to ensure that the health board does have the capacity to address these very serious issues?

Thank you for raising both of those issues, and I can give you my commitment that I will speak to both the Deputy Minister and the Minister in terms of what would be the most appropriate way and the most appropriate time to update on both the issues of the Ockenden review and the issues that Powys County Council have been facing in their children's services.

Trefnydd, I listened with interest yesterday to the statement by the UK environment Minister on measures to improve air quality across the UK, and whilst the measures to clean up wood and coal in open fires and stoves, as well as polluting substances in scented candles, carpets and paint, may be laudable, the major challenge in my constituency is pollutants from vehicles. So, I was disappointed that the UK Government is not planning to do anything further beyond the ban on diesel vehicles by 2040. So, I wondered if we could have a statement from the Welsh Government on how Welsh Government policy relates to this new statement from the UK Government, which also includes measures to reduce ammonia emissions from agriculture, which may be of interest. But I'm just concerned about the very slow pace of reform, given what we now know about the impact of air pollutants on really important issues like miscarriages, heart disease and dementia. Therefore, there seems to be a lack of urgency about what the UK Government is doing. So, I'd be very keen to understand the Welsh Government's response so that we can then scrutinise that. So, I wonder if we can have a statement on that.

Thank you very much for raising this issue, because clean air clearly has a central role to play in creating the right conditions for better health, for well-being and for greater physical activity across Wales as well. And I think that this is recognised in our commitment to reducing emissions and delivering vital improvements to air quality, but doing it through planning, through infrastructure, through regulation and also through health communication measures.

The Member will be aware that, in summer 2018, the Welsh Government established the clean air programme for Wales to reduce the burden of poor air quality on human health and the natural environment, and that programme is very much considering the evidence and developing and implementing actions right across Government, and across sectors including the environment, health, education, decarbonisation, transport, local government planning, agriculture and industry, to try and achieve clean air for Wales. The work being developed through that programme will inform the development of a clean air plan for Wales, which the Welsh Government intends to consult on and publish during 2019, and I would encourage Members to have an interest in that to engage with that consultation.

I would like to request a statement from the Minister for Health and Social Services on the case of my constituent, Mr Barry Topping-Morris. Mr Topping-Morris was the head of nursing at the Caswell Clinic in the then Bro Morgannwg NHS Trust when he was removed from post in 2005. He had brought to the attention of senior management what he considered irregularities in the assessment and treatment of a patient. These concerns emerged when Mr Topping-Morris conducted an internal review into a serious case and in preparation for a visit by Health Inspectorate Wales. I am concerned that Mr Topping-Morris's subsequent treatment as an employee might have been adversely affected by the way he sought to exercise his professional judgment in applying constructive challenge in this difficult case.

A number of reviews have been held, but none on the employment practices. The most recent review carried out on behalf of Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Local Health Board, in March 2015, stated that the employment concerns, and I now quote:

'were not within scope of the review'.

It appears that Mr Topping-Morris's employment concerns have never been properly investigated, and given that these might be relevant to wider issues of public interest, I would urge the Minister to commission a further review so that closure can at last be made to this case.

I thank you very much for raising what is a very sensitive issue, and I appreciate the distress that has been caused to your constituent, if he feels that his concerns haven't been fully investigated and addressed. You'll appreciate that the health Minister can't become involved in individual employment matters, but he has indicated to me that he would be prepared to write to the chair of the health board on this matter, specifically on the issue of whether all of the employment issues raised by your constituent about employment practices and so on, as you've described, have been properly considered and effectively addressed. I'll ensure that he shares that response with you when he receives it.

Thank you very much, Minister.