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

Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, when will you make a decision about the future of the M4 relief road?

Well, I will make a decision, Llywydd, when I am in the right position to do so. I know it's frustrating for Members, but the position is the one that I've set out on the floor of the Assembly previously. There was a major local public inquiry. It has produced a report, which I believe is substantial in scale and nature. Officials continue to consider that report and to make sure that, when they provide advice to me, it is secure as far as the legal aspects are concerned, the financial aspects are concerned, the policy aspects are concerned, and I have said to them that I want the best possible advice. Now, I believe that advice will be with me before too long, but I'm still prepared to make sure that the advice is the right advice, and then—to be clear with the Member—when the advice arrives I will need time to study that advice, because the advice will be complex and it will be significant, and I will put the time in necessary to make sure that the right decision is made.

Llywydd, all we've had from successive Labour Governments is dither, dither, dither, and that answer is just further dithering from you, First Minister. It's quite clear that, despite £44 million of taxpayers' money being spent on the inquiry into solutions for the M4 relief road, the details are now gathering dust on your desk, First Minister, given that it has been months since the report was published. Your Government is continuing to drag its heels on finding a viable solution, and the uncertainty that this is creating is hurting Welsh businesses and is damaging investment. Now, last week, more than 90 major businesses, who represent a quarter of the Welsh workforce, wrote to you urgently seeking clarification on this issue. You must end this uncertainty by finally telling Wales what your plans are. So, can you be clear here today? If the findings of the inquiry recommend the black route, will your Government then accept the outcome and actually deliver on the black route?

Well, the Member cannot possibly imagine that I'm going to give him an answer to that question on the floor of the Assembly when I have neither seen the report nor seen any of the accompanying advice that would be necessary for me. It would be reckless in the extreme to do so, and it would simply put whatever I said in legal jeopardy by those who might wish to challenge it. Of course I saw what the CBI and others have said, and the answer that I give to them must be the same as I've given to you: I will make a decision in the best possible way. I will do it in full consideration of all the factors that go into making it, and I will make it in the best way that I can.

First Minister, my question was a straightforward question, but, again, you can't give a straightforward answer. Welsh Labour have now stalled on this issue for almost 20 years, and appear as incapable as ever of driving forward a solution to the problem. It's beginning to look, from where I'm standing, like this project walked out the door with the previous First Minister. The damaging effects of your policy failures on developing an effective transport system are clear. Welsh gross value added is at the bottom of the UK league table; productivity is at the bottom of the UK league table; wages are at the bottom of the UK league table. And we can't underestimate how important this infrastructure project is for improving the economic fortunes of Wales. So, First Minister, if you're not going to deliver on the black route, can you tell us what solutions you will then bring forward as a Government, because the people of Wales have waited long enough?

Llywydd, it is difficult sometimes to listen to what the Member says without remembering that his party's the one that failed to bring electrification of the railways, that has presided over the delays in Wylfa—[Interruption.] And when it comes, Llywydd, to waiting to act on a report, how many months, and, eventually, into years went by before his Government acted to turn down the report that itself had commissioned in relation to the Swansea bay tidal lagoon? So, I think he's got plenty to think about in his party's own record.

Let me say this to him: his question to me was the absolute opposite of straightforward. It pretended that it is possible to give a simple answer to a complex question, that without having considered any of the advice or the report itself that I should come to a conclusion here on the floor of the Assembly. It would be the absolute opposite of sensible ways of proceeding for me to have taken his advice. 

The leader of Plaid Cymru, Adam Price. 

Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, can you assure the Senedd that your leading civil servant, Permanent secretary Dame Shan Morgan, has not indicated in conversation with you, or Cabinet or other colleagues that she is willing to leave her position before her contract ends in 2022?

I give the Member an assurance that no such conversations have taken place. 

First Minister, I'm afraid I have to press you again on this point, and this is because of the nature of the way this alleged departure has emerged in the media, as reported last Thursday by the Western Mail's chief reporter, Martin Shipton. He refers to a number of senior, and, as he puts it, well-placed sources in the Welsh Government providing him with the information that there have been discussions about Dame Shan Morgan's early departure. Now, there are two possibilities arising from the story as reported: either it is true, in which case the Permanent Secretary might have a case to claim constructive dismissal, or it is not, in which case someone is trying to deliberately undermine the Permanent Secretary. The Government, under your predecessor, had to deny allegations of briefing against individuals. Aren't you just a bit concerned that this practice seems to be continuing? 

Well, Llywydd, as far as that story's concerned, I think I'm as well placed a source as the Member will ever have. What I wanted to do—. I'm not going to be drawn into speculation about how other people may have come across information they think they have and so on. What I will do is simply report the direct conversations that I have had with the individual that the Member has named, and I give him this assurance absolutely that the things that he has read in the newspaper have never once arisen in any conversation that I have had with the Permanent Secretary, and that the correction that was issued by the Welsh Government and carried in that story 100 per cent represents the position of the Welsh Government. 

First Minister, when John Howard famously sacked all his departmental heads 20 years ago in Australia, it was dubbed 'the night of the long knives'. Now your Government is denying all knowledge of conversations several senior sources have maintained did happen. It seems to be a night of the short memories. Now, it said in the article that you're anxious to have a fresh start, but to give what you said now, today, on the record, added credence, can you confirm that neither you nor anyone acting on your behalf will either request or agree to the Permanent Secretary terminating her contract early? There is, after all, a very important principle here—the clue is in the name 'permanent' secretary. In order to protect the impartiality and independence of the civil service, politicians should never be able to sack the senior civil service. So, does the First Minister agree that, if there is no fresh start over the next two and a half years, it's the people then who will be the judge, and the person then who should be sacked under those circumstances will be you?

Well, let me try and rescue something from the Member's final question that would be worth a sensible response. I completely agree with what Adam Price said that the independence and the impartiality of the civil service is central to the way that we do business, and it is central to the way that this Government does business here in Wales, and there is nothing that I will do or any Member of my Government will do to cast any doubt on that principle. Of course, the Member was right that, in the end, we all work for the people who elect us, and every one of us—every one of us—is in a position at the end of an Assembly term where a verdict will be passed on us by the people who sent us here in the first place, and so that should be. 

Leader of the UKIP group, Gareth Bennett.

Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, Cardiff's bus services are in a crisis. The council-run Cardiff Bus lost nearly £2 million last year and is haemorrhaging money. Cardiff Bus has responded by cutting routes and raising fares, which affects passengers, and by downgrading pay and conditions for its own staff. It still hasn't filed its accounts for last year. What are your reflections on Cardiff's bus crisis and its implications for bus services in the rest of Wales?

I thank the Member for the question. The points he raises are important ones to people who live in the capital city particularly. It is because of the situation in Cardiff Bus company that my colleague Ken Skates has asked Transport for Wales to go to the company to offer advice to them, to make sure that they have whatever support they need to try to make sure that they respond to the commercial pressures that they face and to make decisions that promote the long-term health of bus services in the capital city.

I'm glad that action has been taken already and I'm glad that your transport Minister is already on the case and there is going to be discussion with Cardiff Council. But problems with transport in Cardiff have been going on for some time, so I think perhaps I can give some pointers—I know he's a very able Cabinet Minister, but perhaps I can offer some pointers on this occasion. It's Cardiff Council that oversees the operation of Cardiff Bus and scrutinises it, but I wonder how effective that scrutiny actually is. Cardiff Council, which is run by your Welsh Labour Party has no transport committee to oversee the bus operations. Cardiff Bus is actually overseen by the environment committee, which seems to be a very wide-ranging committee, and I wonder how far they look at the bus operations. Also, it is chaired by Ramesh Patel, who until recently was the council cabinet member for transport. So, to some extent, he's effectively scrutinising decisions that he made himself not so long ago as the cabinet member. Of course, you will be aware of this, First Minister, since when he has time to do so Councillor Patel also works for you at the Assembly. Are you confident that Cardiff Council's Labour-dominated environment committee actually has the ability to oversee what Cardiff Bus is doing and help to turn around this staggering mess?

Well, Llywydd, there is a proper arrangement in which there is a board that looks after Cardiff Bus and the relationship between it and the city council is one for the city council itself to be satisfied with, not for me. Insofar as I see it from the outside, I believe those scrutiny arrangements are robust. Following the White Paper that my colleague Ken Skates has published and its debate here in the Assembly, it may lead to a joint transport authority, which would further reinforce the scrutiny arrangements over what goes on in Cardiff but more widely across the whole of the south Wales region and beyond.

I'm interested in what you say about the joint transport authority. I think that's something, and it's better than simply saying, 'It's a matter for the local council', which is the kind of response that Ministers here tend to usually hide behind. But it is interesting, is it not, that when you campaigned for the job of First Minister, one of your policies was to agree with Jeremy Corbyn that we need to return to having more municipal bus companies here in Wales? If you did what you said you would do and you went for more municipal bus companies, would this not simply be extending Cardiff's failing model across the whole of Wales and causing more problems for the hard-pressed Welsh taxpayer?

Well, the answer to that, Llywydd, is: of course not. Because if we were in a position, as we hope to be able to be, to reintroduce re-regulation of the bus services to bring services that depend almost entirely on the investment that the public makes in them already back under the control of the public, then we would do it in a way that avoids many of the difficulties that the current model provides for the municipal bus service here in Cardiff. I am very pleased indeed to align myself with those proposals that are being developed to bring bus services in Wales back within the control of the public and those people who pay for them already, and the White Paper that my colleague has published is a major step forward on that journey.