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

Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, can you tell us how many people are waiting for follow-up appointments in the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board area?

Those figures are published, Llywydd, and therefore available to Member, as to every other Member of the Chamber. 

Well, let me help you, First Minister, to answer my question. According to the Daily Post newspaper, a freedom of information request found, in total, 70,908 people have had to wait more than six weeks for their out-patient appointment. A staggering 27,334 people have had to wait at least 53 weeks—more than a year—for an appointment. And let's look at some other facts, because you're very keen on statistics today, First Minister. Patients attending the emergency department are now waiting, on average, seven hours to get a resolution. Back in January 2014, it was just under four hours. And behind every statistic is a real person who is being let down. Having a health board in special measures should mean things are getting better, but special measures, under your health Minister, mean things are getting worse. The special measures at Betsi Cadwaladr were meant to last two years, but now have gone on for four years. There is no specific plan, no timeline, no leadership to take the health board out of special measures. Who is accountable for this lack of improvement?

Well, Llywydd, special measures at Betsi Cadwaladr will last for as long as the health Minister believes that they are necessary, and as long as it is necessary to make sure we have the improvements replicated in other areas that we have already seen in relation to maternity services, that we've seen in out-of-hours GP services, that we are seeing in primary care, and, indeed, that we are seeing in mental health as well. Of course, there are things that that board has to improve, and that does include waiting times for some specialities. It does include financial planning. That's why the board remains in special measures, because we are not satisfied, and the Minister is not satisfied, that everything is yet in place to allow us to de-escalate that level of intervention. 

But the Member is selective, as he always is. He doesn't mention, as he could have mentioned, if he had the facts that are in front of him, that the number of patients waiting less than 26 weeks for treatment is now the best in Wales that it has been since 2013. He didn't point to the fact that therapy waits in Wales were 98 per cent lower at the end of March this year than they were in March of last year. He didn't point out that there is a 30 per cent increase in five years in the number of cancer patients in Wales who are treated within the target times that we have laid down.

The point that I always want to try to make to the Member is that it is not sensible, and neither is it helpful to those many people who work every single day to make our health services in north Wales, and every other part of Wales, as good as they possibly can be, to treat the exceptional as though it were typical. Where there are exceptions, and where there are things that need to be done better, then, of course, we work to do that, and the figures that I've just provided to him demonstrate how we are succeeding in those headline matters right across our country. 

Well, First Minister, the figures that I've just given you are, unfortunately, very typical, because you are failing to provide leadership in this health board. Now, last week, the health Minister claimed that mental health services in the Betsi health board area were actually improving—and I commend the board for having a new strategy on responding to mental health issues for people of all ages. However, First Minister, this new strategy was published in September 2017. Now, the cross-party group for north Wales has been told that the delivery plan for the new strategy is still in draft form and won't be published until September this year—two years since this new strategy was agreed. Surely, this is unacceptable, First Minister. Now, we heard from you last week, and you made it very clear—when it comes to making decisions, you are the decision maker. When will you decide that enough is enough and that your Government takes responsibility for this and to actually show some regret for failing the people of north Wales and that your health Minister should take the responsibility and go?

Well, Llywydd, I think we've rehearsed this tired old trope a number of times on the floor of the Assembly. I'm glad that the Member recognised that there have been improvements in services in mental health. When I was the health Minister, there were very significant concerns about mental health services in north Wales, as Members here will know. I was pleased to see the most recent report by Healthcare Inspectorate Wales that commented on the improvements at the Hergest unit, in the unit at Wrexham Maelor, on the way that services in community hospitals in north Wales for people who are elderly and with mental health conditions have improved in recent times. So, it's good to recognise where improvement is being made, because it is by recognising and encouraging improvement that we get further progress, rather than by constantly trying to point to difficulties and make those seem as though they were typical of the experience of patients. Patients in north Wales get, every single day, in thousands and thousands of encounters with the health service, some of the best care that you will find anywhere in the country. Where there are things that need to be done better, of course we will continue to work on those things. But it doesn't help to bring about that improvement by failing to recognise it and treating the whole of that service as though it were something that was not valued by patients—because I can tell him that it certainly is.

The leader of Plaid Cymru, Adam Price.

Diolch, Llywydd. I think it's fair to say that Ford's decision appeared to be a genuine shock to the Welsh Government on Friday. The combination of factors that contributed to the decision, though, would have been less of a surprise, because of Ford's previous statements, especially its announcement in January that it was shedding over 1,000 jobs at the factory. The economy Minister referred earlier to the working group that had already been established to look at potential opportunities for Ford, in light of its difficulties. I was wondering: could you say a little bit more about the work of that previous taskforce—the extent to which it met, the level of engagement with senior management at Ford and the contours of the strategy that it was developing? Did it examine, specifically, the proposals referred to earlier to help save some of the jobs at the plant through the reported interest by INEOS Automotive in assembling its proposed Land Rover Defender-style vehicle in Bridgend, and, for example, a proposal to build a power station for the plant to reduce energy costs, similar to the plan that the Welsh Government supported as part of its efforts to save Port Talbot steelworks? Can you say, First Minister, as well if you plan to meet the president and chief executive officer of Ford urgently? I think I recall your predecessor flying out to India at the time of the Tata crisis. When Michelin, last November in Scotland, announced a plan to close its Dundee plant, the Scottish Finance Minister flew out immediately to meet its senior management in France. And it was at least able to secure a continuing involvement of Michelin, through a joint venture with the Scottish Government and other partners. Finally, to prevent us being blindsided again by this kind of catastrophic announcement on closure, do we need, urgently, an industrial resilience strategy for Wales, given the uncertain times that we're facing? And will you as First Minister, and your ministerial colleagues, now be speaking, over the next few weeks, with every single one of the anchor company's senior management in Wales?

I thank the Member for those questions. The work that the taskforce has been involved in flowed in part from the meetings that I and my colleague Ken Skates had with the most senior Ford representatives back in January here in Cardiff, and the programme of work that was discharged there was very much shaped by what appeared to be Ford's commitment at that time to securing a long-term future for the plant. So, there were a series of prospects that we discussed with them, and brought them, the unions, the UK Government and ourselves around the table to work on a prospectus for the future of the plant that had been shared with us by the most senior management in Ford itself, and that is why the decision was so unexpected on the day that it came, because we appeared to have an agreed set of ideas that we were all committed to working on together. 

Separately, of course, as Ken Skates said in answers to other questions, the Welsh Government has been in discussions with other companies that have an interest in coming to that site and to that part of Bridgend. Those continued separately to the group that was talking about the future of Ford on that site, but, from a Welsh Government position, of course, we're involved in all those discussions together. I look forward, Llywydd, very soon to meeting with senior Ford Europe decision makers, because this was a Ford Europe decision, and arrangements are being made to make sure that we have those further face-to-face meetings.

I was fortunate enough, last week, to be able to have a discussion with the First Minister of Scotland about what had happened in Dundee with Michelin, and she was generous in offering to share some of that experience with us further, to give us access to her officials, to talk about the way in which they had approached that. And it's been part of my discussions with the Prime Minister, when I spoke to her on Friday, and I've written to her again today, to reflect on some of that Scottish experience and the importance, as the First Minister of Scotland said to me, of trying to retain some presence on a site from a company that's had a long-term investment in any part of the United Kingdom. 

Finally, in relation to further strategies and so on, we have our economic action plan. We will be looking at it, of course, in the light of the Ford experience. But we're not without a strategy; we have that strategy already, and we will see where it needs to be further updated in the light of the most recent experience. 

The first line of defence here, of course, is to fight this unconscionable proposal by Ford and we, on this side obviously, as Bethan Jenkins said, wish to express our total solidarity with the members of the GMB and Unite unions who will be balloting for industrial action on Friday. But, obviously, the Government's—. One of the Government's roles is to prepare contingency plans, and I was wondering if you could just share a little bit more of your thinking on these. I can understand why you can't be drawn on specific companies, but I was wondering if you could say a little bit more about the scale of ambition. In essence, is there an opportunity here to turn what, I believe, was the largest manufacturing plant in Europe at one stage in the twentieth century, to a gigafactory for the twenty-first? 

We know the future of cars is electric, and one of the leading companies in the field is Tesla. It's opened two gigafactories in the United States. It's looking to open one in China and one in Europe. So, why not in Wales? Elon Musk has specifically said, in recent months, that, if GM closes plants in the US, he'd be interested in taking them over. Could that principle be applied here? Another major company in the field is the Swedish company Northvolt, which is building a gigafactory producing battery cells with the help of one of the biggest ever investments by the EU's European fund for strategic investments and the European Investment Bank. Nothvolt's CEO has said recently there could be scope for as many as seven such gigafactories across Europe by 2025. Again, is there an opportunity here for us? First Minister, I believe you're visiting Brussels tomorrow. Why not ask the European Commission for the EFSI and the EIB, to which we're still entitled to make an application because we're still in the EU, to make a similar and, in many ways, timely investment here in Wales?

I thank the Member for all those possibilities. I think it's really important that wherever there are ideas about the way in which a future for that plant and that community can be fashioned that we pool these ideas and we explore them all. Everything that he has said I think is worth adding to that mix. But it will go into a mix that has already been in development, as I said, over many months. 

I understand what he said. I was with shop stewards in the plant early on Friday morning with the GMB and with Unite. The feeling of anger and betrayal was absolutely palpable amongst the people around that table. You heard the reasons, Llywydd, I know, from other Members earlier in the discussion. That feeling that the workforce that had done everything that was asked of them, whenever the company asked the trade unions and the workforce to be around the table and to agree to improvements made, they felt they never failed to make that contribution, and that's why the sense of fight amongst those members was very palpable when I met with them.

We have a responsibility, as Adam Price said, to prepare for whatever eventualities there may be, and bringing different firms—the recent announcement of new jobs of the sort that he described at Port Talbot through Onyx—and other ideas, other companies that we have been working with. There is a real responsibility, Llywydd, on the UK Government to make sure that its industrial strategy works for Wales and that they too put their shoulder to the wheel to make sure that where there are these different possibilities that will emerge and be talked about over the next few weeks, that they too do everything they can to make sure that the interest of those workers are supported, promoted, and that real practical assistance, money and effort that the UK Government can make is made on their behalf.

Finally, if I can turn to another matter, First Minister, interviewed during your leadership campaign on 19 November last year, you said, 'I think we've reached the point where we need more Assembly Members to discharge all the responsibilities that the Assembly now has.' You went on to say, 'There is never a good time to go out and say to people that you want to expand the number of people who are elected, but if we'd taken that view in 1999 we would never have had the Assembly in the first place.' Is this still your personal view, and if it is, why weren't you able to convince your party?

The Member is wrong on the second point, because my party at its conference in April of this year endorsed a policy of having more Members for the National Assembly for Wales. I know he takes a very close interest in the workings of the Labour Party, but that part appears to have escaped him. So, he'll be reassured to know that the Labour Party in Wales has agreed on the need for more Members for the National Assembly for Wales. My personal view is the one that I set out then.

The Richard commission, back in the very first term of the National Assembly, concluded that the responsibilities that Assembly Members had then required an Assembly of 80 Members to discharge them satisfactorily. Fifteen and more years since then, the responsibilities that are discharged in this Chamber have grown exponentially—grown legislatively, grown in the fiscal decisions that we make. We need to make sure that there are sufficient Members to be able to discharge those responsibilites, to scrutinise them all. I have come to the conclusion that that is the right answer and I'm glad to be able to reassure the Member that that was the view endorsed at my conference in April.

The leader of the Brexit Party, Mark Reckless.

First Minister, after your near 12-minute exchange with the Plaid Cymru leader, could I try a more succinct question? What do you consider to be the right balance between central control and local autonomy for health bodies in Wales?

I'll offer the Member a principle, and I'll be pretty succinct: my view is that the principle of subsidiarity should be the one that guides us in policy making here in Wales. I'm in favour of decisions being made as close to people as we can manage that and that we develop the way in which services are provided in Wales against that principle. 

I had understood that the special measures regime was at least intended to be a shorter or a sharper intervention to turn around a failing body or at least a body in which there were problems. I just wonder, reflecting on the questions we had from the leader of the opposition, whether the First Minister would consider whether the special measures regime that has developed strikes that correct balance, because it has now gone for over four years with that particular body but, at the same time, we're seeing almost half of health boards in Wales in the special measures regime. Doesn't that give a risk that the attentions of the health Minister, however much the First Minister supports him, are spread too thinly? Does it also give a risk for Betsi Cadwaladr in particular? Yes, we accepted in your motion last week that a couple of the issues have improved that were initially identified. However, a number of other issues, and really very serious and, I think, across the board rather than selectively quoted—for instance that over 70,000 waiting over six months, a seven-hour average wait at accident and emergency, and the emergence and worsening of problems in those areas, amongst others—. Does any of that reflect the fact that it has been in special measures for four years and that some of those local managers, perhaps some of those local clinicians, don't see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it makes it harder to recruit or retain people or drive that local improvement from them while the special measures regime lasts?

Finally from me, could I ask about the community health councils and the pending legislation we have in this area? One area in which they've done well is bringing in local vloolunteers, local people, seeing them as independent and able, to a degree, to hold Welsh Government and local health boards to account. Is the First Minister not concerned, as many others are, that, come this new legislation, bottom-up bodies where the chair of each body is on the national board will be replaced with a top-down body more under the thumb of Welsh Government and therefore less open to local people and less independent? [Interruption.] It was still less than three minutes. I'm not allowed to come back.  

Llywydd, it's entirely because we don't have a system that is under the thumb of Welsh Government, as he put it, that we have the calibrated intervention protocols that we operate in Wales, because when a health organisation is put into that system, it is not the decision of the Welsh Government alone; it is a tripartite decision. Making it involves Healthcare Inspectorate Wales, the auditor general and Welsh Government, and it is always an agreed form of intervention that that tripartite system involves, and I'm very comfortable with that, because it shouldn't be a system that is under the thumb of the Welsh Government and it isn't, either. 

There was something that the Member said that I agreed with, and that is that encouraging those people who are charged with trying to bring about improvement in our health service is really important, and recognising when things are going well, as well as when things are not going as well as we want them, ought to be a very important part of the repertoire that Government deploys in order to support those people who, at that front line, have to make those decisions every day. 

As far as CHCs are concerned, I think we have a proud history in that area, Llywydd. We retained CHCs here in Wales when they were abolished across our border, and we've always supported them in the work that they do. Now there is an opportunity, in the legislation that will come before the National Assembly, to make sure that, with the part that CHCs play in the quality arrangements that we have in the Welsh NHS, we maximise the contribution that those local voluntary people have in being the eyes and ears of patients. Members will have every opportunity during the passage of the Bill to scrutinise those proposals and to see that they deliver on that agenda of making certain that we have people in every part of the health service in Wales who are able to report on what they see, draw it to the attention of those who are paid to run our health services, and to capitalise on the enormous contribution that volunteers make to the health service in Wales.