Questions now from the party leaders. The Plaid Cymru leader, Adam Price.

Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, in the midst of your wrestling with the decision about the M4 relief road and its implications for investment in public transport, have you been made aware that Aberdeen-based First Group is poised to divest itself of its UK bus operations, including in Swansea, where its subsidiary, First Cymru, runs the local bus service that also extends east to Bridgend and west to Tenby, and, of course, nationally through the TrawsCymru service as well? 

Llywydd, I was aware of the reports that have been made of that matter. It is exactly why we are committed to bringing forward legislation in relation to bus services in Wales, which will provide new powers to local authorities and others, to make sure that the very significant level of public investment that is made in bus services in Wales can be made in a way that serves the public interest. I look forward to that legislation being put in front of this Assembly later in this calendar year, and to the process of scrutiny that will then surround it. 

We, on this side, of course, welcome moves towards the re-regulation of bus services. In the interim, I was wondering if the First Minister would care to say whether the acquisition of First Cymru could be a great opportunity for Swansea to follow both the Cardiff Bus and Newport Bus models, and indeed you could say there are similarities with the situation in Cardiff Airport, in demonstrating how good public service provision can produce returns for the taxpayer rather than profits for the shareholder. Quite rightly, the Welsh Government is subsidising public transport in Wales through concessionary fares offered to bus pass holders, but, except in Cardiff and Newport, a proportion of Welsh Government bus pass funding is finding its way into the profits of private sector companies based in England, Scotland, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Singapore. Wouldn't it be much better if this money was recycled in Wales by taking bus operations, such as First Cymru, now that it's up for sale, into public ownership? And would you also agree the opportunity to bring First Cymru into public ownership underlines the direction we should be taking in moving towards an all-Wales integrated public transport network co-ordinated through Transport for Wales? 

Well, I thank Adam Price for that second question and to agree with much of the analysis that he set out, which is very consistent with the White Paper that we published in relation to bus re-regulation and the reasons why we intend to bring those proposals forward. I'm very familiar, Llywydd, with the Cardiff model and the fact that Newport has managed to retain public ownership of its bus service. It has been in the teeth of the opposition from the UK Government—their ideologically driven determination that local authorities should divest themselves of services that they run on behalf of the public—and our White Paper is designed to use powers we have to reverse that trend here in Wales. The Minister for Housing and Local Government is in her place and will have heard the points that you've made about the actions that could be taken in Swansea direct, and I know that she will be able to discuss those possibilities with the leader of the council in Swansea and to see what appetite there is either to move ahead of the legislation that we intend to bring forward, or whether the legislation that we will provide will provide a better platform for that local authority and others to move in the direction that I think is common between us. 

I welcome that. Could I urge the Welsh Government at a national level also to see if there is a possibility in terms of it taking a stake? Some of us will remember, of course, South Wales Transport. It still has a depot in the village of Tycroes, which the Minister for Economy and Transport and I know very well. So, there is an opportunity here. 

Finally, I mentioned Cardiff Airport, which is a strong exemplar, I think, of why this kind of approach can be successful. Nevertheless, I was slightly concerned by the evidence that we had from the airport to the Public Accounts Committee, setting out their belief that they need to take on or that the Welsh Government needs to sell part of its stake in the airport in order for them to secure the investment that is necessary. Can the First Minister say whether that is the policy position of the Welsh Government? Are you open to selling part of your stake? And can you say whether you are aware of any discussions, or what your position would be if that stake was sold to a sovereign wealth fund of a country that had a dubious human rights record?

Llywydd, the Welsh Government has no current policy of selling part of our stake in the airport. I understand the points that the airport makes about the need for capital to support its further expansion and development, and to date we've always been able to support the airport in its ambitions through the Development Bank for Wales and other instruments that we have in our own hands. That, I think, has served the airport well, and I see no reason to depart from that model.

Leader of the opposition, Paul Davies.

Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, can you explain the continued fall of teacher training applicants in Wales under your Government, and why the recruitment targets have been missed for the last few years?

Llywydd, of course I'm aware of the latest figures in relation to initial teacher training. We continue to reform parts of the offer that we make to people in Wales to try and draw more people into the profession, and particularly into shortage areas. We continue to recruit very successfully at primary level. There is more that we need to do, particularly in science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects and in teaching of the Welsh language, to make sure that we recruit the people we will need for the future. We offer a very generous package of support to people who put themselves forward for teacher training in that way. What we won't do, Llywydd, is to lower the standards that we expect of people who come into the profession, and we will continue to calibrate our offer to make sure that we have a supply of teachers that are needed in Wales, and of the standard that we need as well.

First Minister, these figures are very, very worrying, because the number of those training to teach at secondary level was 40 per cent below the target, while the number of students taking primary level courses was 11 per cent below the target. This means 370 fewer students gained qualified teacher status in 2017-18 compared to four years ago, and we've also seen the number of teacher trainee entrants from Wales on secondary school courses in Wales drop by 37 per cent over the last four years, while the number starting to train in England has actually increased by 34 per cent. Indeed, the number of students from England coming to train here has also fallen by over a half. What this exposes, First Minister, is a pattern. Your Government has proven itself incapable of recruiting teachers for the next generation of Welsh schoolchildren, unable to persuade Wales's talent pool to train here, and feckless at making Wales an attractive place for others to come and train. Can you therefore give this Assembly one specific example of a working policy for actually reversing this worrying trend, which has been presided over by successive Welsh Labour Governments?

Well, I entirely reject the hyperbolic description that the Member has offered us—[Interruption.] Facts are one thing; interpretation and description of them is another. It's the description of them that I depart from very much in what the Member said.

Let me give him his one example: we will extend teacher training in Wales through new part-time routes, supported by this Welsh Government for students in higher education. Because we want to bring a wider diversity of people into the teaching profession, and we want people who have experience in other parts of the workforce who are then, at that point in their careers, willing to think about making teaching something that they would offer into the future. They're often not in a position to abandon what they are doing and train on a full-time basis for teaching, but part-time routes, supported through work that we do with the Open University and others, open up those possibilities for new recruits here in Wales and that, I think, is a very clear and specific example of an innovative approach to recruitment in this area.

First Minister, you shouldn't dismiss these figures. These figures are very, very worrying indeed, and it's about time that your Government starts tackling these issues.

Now, in 2016, the Welsh Government announced the ambitious target of 1 million Welsh speakers. To achieve this, we will have to recruit far more teachers who are able to speak Welsh, and teachers who can teach through the medium of Welsh. Unfortunately, the number of students able to teach through the medium of Welsh is at its lowest point for a decade, with only 10 per cent of applicants able to do that. And in addition to that, of the number that are able to speak Welsh fluently, over a third of these weren’t training to teach through the medium of Welsh.

Given these factors, I am concerned that we won’t achieve the target of a million Welsh speakers by 2050. The Government must take action now. Certainly, you have to be more ambitious in ensuring that more students want to teach through the medium of Welsh through a credible strategy. So, what hope do we have of reaching this target unless we are moving in the right direction already? So, what are you going to do in order to overturn this situation in order to ensure that more students are encouraged to teach through the medium of Welsh?

Well, to begin with, may I agree with what the Member has said about the importance of preparing young people through our schools if we are to attain the ambitious target that we’ve set? That is why we are doing more in our schools at A-level, in order to get more students to study at A-level and to draw more young people into further and higher education who use the Welsh language throughout the continuum of education.

I attended the Urdd, as I’m sure many other Members did, last week, and I met a great number of young people who use the Welsh language in their school and in their everyday lives, and enjoy using the Welsh language at the Eisteddfod. And I spoke to lots of other people down in the Bay—people who’d just come down to relax in the bay—to explain what they are doing, and to try and create an appetite among other people to support us on our journey.

So, I remain confident that if we work together we will be able to attain 1 million Welsh speakers, and we are doing everything that we can do as a Government, within education and outwith education also, to support this ambitious target.

Leader of the Brexit Party, Mark Reckless.

First Minister, you used to say that you would respect the result of the referendum, but you don't now, do you? Having led the Labour Party in Wales to its worst defeat for over 100 years, you tell the voters that they've got it wrong. You lead a remain establishment that tells the people of Wales, in the words of one AM, that they're ignorant and that they have to vote again. First Minister, when did you stop believing in democracy?

Well, Llywydd, I entirely reject what the Member has said. This Government, for the long months following the referendum, pursued two courses of action that were endorsed here on the floor of the Assembly on 30 January when we voted on both those propositions. The first was always that we believed that a deal could be done that would allow this country to leave the European Union without it doing harm to our economy and jobs. We set that out in 'Securing Wales' Future'. We have used every opportunity that we have had, very often with our Scottish Government colleagues, to advocate for that form of Brexit.

It is clear to me that the leadership contest within the Conservative Party means that it is now impossible that such a deal can be struck, because the contest is between candidates who seek to outvie each other by declaring harder and harder forms of Brexit, and that means that those efforts that we made we made in absolute good faith, we made them for as long as we possibly could, and they have reached the point where they no longer can be credibly pursued. In those circumstances, what I have done is to articulate the position agreed on the floor of this National Assembly—that if we were unable to see a way of securing that form of Brexit, then the decision would have to go back to the people who made the decision in the first place. That's the position we have arrived at. We will do everything we can now to secure that position. And I'll say it again for the sake of avoiding any doubt that, if there were a second opportunity for people to vote on such a proposition, the advice of the Welsh Government will not have changed to the advice that we gave in the run-up to the 2016 referendum—that Wales's future is better secured through continued membership of the European Union.

First Minister, that doesn't explain why you said one thing before the European election and another one afterwards. You make out now that there's such a greater chance of no deal that you've had to change your policy and say you back a referendum whatever, but that's not what you said before the election, is it? You tell us there's so much more chance of no deal—you came to the Brexit committee on 7 January and again on 25 March to talk about no deal; you've only been once since. You came to this Chamber on 22 January, 19 February and again on 19 March to go on about no deal, but you haven't come to this Chamber since. On 5 March, you had that debate supposedly to rule out no deal. Even on 21 January you had a 'no deal' day and you cancelled all Government business for the whole day and gave a statement yourself and rolled out every Minister to tell us about no deal, but none of that since. Because the reality is that things haven't changed, except for what happened to your party in that European election.

You say about the Conservative election process, which you take such an interest in, that the election of a new Conservative leader changes all of that, it eliminates the chances of an agreed deal and hugely increases the chance of a 'no deal' exit. Has he been following the same Conservative leadership campaign that I have? Of the three favourite candidates, one of them, Jeremy Hunt, has said no deal would be political suicide and he wouldn't pursue it. Another, Michael Gove, has said he's so against no deal he's willing to stay in the EU at least until the end of 2020. So, there's one favoured candidate, Boris, who's said he backs no deal if he doesn't get a deal by 31 October. Do you believe Boris? Do you trust everything he says? Do you think there's any more truth in what he says now as there was in what Theresa May said 100 times about leaving on 29 March? Isn't the reality, First Minister, that you've said one thing before the election, another afterwards, and what you say about no deal, what you say about respecting the result of the referendum, is no more meaningful than your manifesto commitment to deliver an M4 relief road?

Well, Llywydd, I'm used to the fact that politics is theatre, although it's a great deal more pantomime than any other form. I offered the Member a proper answer to his first question. He pays no heed at all to the answer and would rather offer us his pre-prepared lecture. 'Nothing has changed', he said, and I wrote down, at one point. Of course, he has changed. He has changed his party a number of times, I think, over the period that he outlined.

The danger of a 'no deal' exit from the European Union, Llywydd, has strengthened immeasurably as a result of the election within the Conservative Party, because candidates there know that the electorate they have to satisfy within that party is an electorate that demands that they will say that they will leave the European Union and if necessary leave it without a deal at all. That is catastrophic from a Welsh point of view. Sadly, to my mind, the ability to try and craft a different deal has evaporated in those circumstances. In those circumstances, I simply reiterate the position agreed on the floor of this Assembly—that if we cannot do a deal of that sort, then we must go back to the people. That's the position we are in today. We will not stand by—we will not stand idly by and allow the Member and others like him to take this country out of the European Union on terms that would do such damage to families, businesses, public services, universities, the length and breadth of Wales. He may be willing to pitch us over the edge of the cliff, but we will certainly not be there to join him.