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

Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, the Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, has announced the average working week in the UK would be cut to 32 hours within 10 years under a UK Labour Government. Do you as a Government support that policy?

I think it's an excellent policy, Llywydd. I was very glad to be able to discuss it with John McDonnell earlier this week. Workers in Wales will welcome that ambition. They would like to be in the same position as their counterparts in other parts of Europe and, by the actions that we will take in Government to drive up productivity, to rebalance the economy in favour of working people, then that is an ambition that, absolutely, on this side the Chamber we support.

Well, First Minister, at least you agree with your party at a UK level on one policy, anyway, given you disagree with it on the Brexit issue.

Now, First Minister, responding to the announcement, the CBI director Carolyn Fairbairn made it clear that without productivity gains, it would push many businesses into loss. And it's not just businesses in Wales that would be affected by this, is it? We've long debated the recruitment crisis caused by your Labour Government in our Welsh NHS, and we know that the health service is already struggling to cope with demand for doctors, nurses and other health professionals. First Minister, can you tell us how many extra doctors, nurses and other vital NHS staff will be needed to meet the extra pressures that this policy will create, bearing in mind you've failed to recruit enough to meet the current needs?

Llywydd, I was very glad to meet with Carolyn Fairbairn during the summer and to agree with her how close the views of the CBI and the Welsh Government are in relation to Brexit and to the economy. We discussed the issue of productivity in that meeting and agreed that the policy of his Government in keeping labour cheap has had the effect of keeping productivity levels down in this country. It's inevitable, isn't it? If you make people cheap, then businesses don't invest in those machinery and other reforms that lead to greater productivity. The French experience tells us clearly that if you reduce hours, you improve productivity. That's what we want to see in this country.

The problems of recruitment in the health service are far more badly affected by the policies of his party and his Government, in which people who come from other parts of Europe to work in our NHS no longer believe that under his Government they're welcome to be in this country. That is a far greater threat to employment in the NHS than anything that says to people who work in it, 'We would like you to be able to have a better balance between the hours you spend in work and the hours you have to spend with your family', and that's what a Labour Government will deliver for you.

I remind the First Minister that he is responsible for health policy here in Wales. And this is not just about hospitals, this particular policy, but it's also about our schools too. A paper published by the Nuffield Foundation and UCL Institute of Education showed that a quarter of teachers work more than 60 hours per week in the UK. We know that your Government has made it clear that it has no plans to close schools for an extra day a week, which effectively means that headteachers, under a future UK Labour Government, would have to hire additional staff and drastically change their rotas in order to achieve a reduced working week. First Minister, what magical money tree does the Welsh Government have to actually meet this objective? And how will you attract teachers to Wales, given that your own Government has missed its own targets for new secondary trainee teachers by 40 per cent already this year?

It's just beyond credibility, Llywydd. I couldn't quite understand. The leader of the opposition began his questions to me apparently complaining that we were going to ask people to work fewer hours. He then complains that teachers are working too many hours. Well, I'm not sure which he prefers. The policy of this Government will be to work with the next Labour Government in the United Kingdom to help those families to work fewer hours, to help our public servants to be able to make the efforts that we know they want to make. And as to the magic money tree, maybe he would like to give me the map that led Boris Johnson to the magic money tree that he has been shaking, because after a decade of telling us that there was no money for everything, his Government has been busy shovelling it out of the door as though there was no tomorrow.

Plaid Cymru leader, Adam Price.

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. With a salary range of up to nearly £60,000, the Welsh Government has recently advertised the post of child poverty review lead. Can the First Minister explain what's the key task mentioned at the top of the job description?

We are looking for a child poverty review lead to help in the work that my colleague Julie James has set in motion. We want to make sure that all the actions we take right across the Government are making the maximum possible contribution to dealing with the scourge of poverty in the lives of children in Wales and the fact that there will be 50,000 more children living in poverty at the end of this decade than there were at the start, as a result of the deliberate decisions of the Conservative Government. I want this Government to take all the practical actions it can to interrogate the policies and procedures we have in place to make sure that they are doing the maximum they can to assist families in that position, and that's what we will be looking to a lead officer to assist us in bringing about. 

The job description reads as follows: the first task of the successful applicant will be to develop a better understanding of what is happening in the lives of children living in poverty. Now, I say this with the greatest of respect, but after 20 years of devolution, surely your Government should know the answer to that question. A third of our children—over 200,000—live in poverty, 90,000 live in severe poverty and Wales was the only UK nation to see a rise in child poverty last year. In 2016, you dropped the target, as a Government, of eradicating child poverty by the end of the decade that you just referenced, and you got rid of a specific Minister responsible for achieving that target, moving to a coordinating role. Now, at that time, the Children's Commissioner for Wales called for a child delivery plan similar to that in Scotland, but there hasn't been a progress report even, since, because there's been no progress. Isn't the biggest poverty of all poverty of ambition?

Llywydd, I'm disappointed that the Member doesn't think that having a better understanding of poverty and how it impacts the lives of children in Wales today is something that is worth a Government pursuing. I remember sitting with him in discussions when Plaid Cymru were proposing an observatory in the child poverty field so that we would have just that better understanding available to us. I don't think that's an ambition that is not worth having, because if we have a better understanding, and particularly if we have a better understanding through the eyes of children themselves, then we will be able to do what is something that I know is shared between our parties. We want to make the greatest difference that we can in the lives of children in Wales, and we particularly want to make that difference in the lives of those children where money is the barrier to those children having the sorts of lives and experiences we want them to have.

Now, I read the children's commissioner's report and met her to discuss it, because I thought it was an excellent report. I have had to say a few times on the floor of the Assembly—questioning those who advocate to me that what the Welsh Government needs is a new child poverty strategy, and saying that I prefer the advice of the children's commissioner, which is that what we need is a refreshed delivery plan, looking at the practical things that we can do. My colleague Rebecca Evans and other have met with the children's commissioner since to look at those practical actions. That's why we want a lead to be involved in all of this. Because in that way, we use the levers that we have in our hands to make the biggest difference.

I remember when the last Labour Government in Westminster appointed a poverty tsar nine years actually after coming into Government, and I said to them what I say to you now: 'Where have you been?' quite frankly. The Scottish Government has adopted binding statutory targets to reduce child poverty. It's fast tracking its delivery plan to commit to a £10 a week per child payment for families who are receiving universal credit. Four hundred thousand children in Scotland will benefit and 30,000 could be freed from poverty immediately. The senior Scottish economist at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has praised this as a beacon of progressive policy. Now, Plaid Cymru in Government in 2021 will commit to going even further, but where the UK Government has cut back, surely the Welsh Government needs to step up. It's staggering, First Minister, that you are only now waking up to the effects of poverty on children's lives. When will we see real investment and when will you set an ambitious target so that children don't go to school hungry and to bed cold?

Wel, Llywydd, it is nonsense, isn't it? The Member always manages to spoil a serious point he's making because he can't avoid a rhetorical flourish at the end. The idea that this party and this Government have not been interested in child poverty over the whole of the period of devolution simply wouldn't bear even a few seconds of examination.

When the Labour Government appointed its poverty tsar, child poverty in Wales had been falling for a decade. And that's the story of devolution: the first decade in which child poverty fell year after year—not far enough, not fast enough for many of us, but heading down every year—and a second decade in which, year after year, more children are in poverty because of the actions that a very different sort of Government with very different priorities has taken. Over the whole of that period, Llywydd, we have taken actions that leave money in the pockets of families who need it the most, whether that is free breakfasts in primary schools at the start of the period of devolution, or whether it is our holiday hunger scheme, which we have instituted in this Assembly term and which Scottish Government colleagues have been very keen to talk to us about to see how that can influence their actions in that sphere.

I want to learn from Scotland. I think that's the way—. Devolution is not a contest between good people over here and bad people over there. Devolution is a way in which we can learn from one another. There are lots of things that Scotland is doing in the field of child poverty that we talk to them about and we can learn from here, and there are lots of things that we do in Wales that Scottish colleagues come to Wales to study in order to inform the shared task that I think this Government and the Scottish Government have, which is how to deal with the onslaught on the lives of people in Scotland and Wales by a Conservative Government that has no interest in their futures, and to do everything that we can do to put different futures in place.

Leader of the Brexit Party, Mark Reckless.

I tuned into the parliament channel on Sunday morning, and enjoyed listening to the First Minister's speech in Bournemouth. It's only after listening to a bit more of the Labour conference that I came to see his contribution as a highlight. Could I ask him, though—? He failed in his efforts to persuade colleagues to break their promise to respect the result of the referendum by campaigning for 'remain' now. It seems others only want to tell people that after the election. But given there's now a prospect of the Labour Party in the UK campaigning to leave the European Union on a supposedly better deal, yet in Wales the Welsh Government is committed to having Wales remain in the EU, does that mean that, if necessary, he now supports the Plaid Cymru policy of leaving the UK in order to stay in the EU?

Llywydd, I'm glad that the Member enjoyed my speech in Bournemouth. I was speaking in Brighton myself—[Laughter.] So, maybe it was some other opportunity that came his way. The policy of this Government on Brexit is absolutely clear. We are very pleased indeed that the Labour Party at UK level is now completely committed to a referendum on the Brexit issue, and people who want to have that second chance to vote on leaving the European Union need to know that if they want to secure that, then a Labour Government is the only way that they will ever have that second chance. When that chance comes, this Government will campaign, as we have said we will for many, many months now, for Wales to remain in the European Union, because that is the best answer for Wales. We want a strongly devolved Wales in a strong and successful United Kingdom inside a strong and successful European Union. We want the Labour Party in Wales to be able to make decisions about the things that we know best and the things that matter most to people in Wales while we remain in the UK Labour Party.

Given the First Minister accepted my correction on the number of Supreme Court judges, I accept his geographical correction with equally good grace.

Could I ask him about another potential divergence between UK and Wales policy? At his conference today, there seems to be a big move to change climate change policy and have a policy of net zero by 2030—that's just 11 years away. Does the First Minister agree with me that that would be an absolute disaster, would lead to a collapse in the economy, even without the group's proposal that we pay reparations for past climate emissions, and that it would undermine any possibility of any joint working with anyone else on this issue? He talks a lot about net zero by 2050, but will he also confirm that the policy of the Welsh Government is not net zero by 2050, but a 90 per cent reduction, as the Committee on Climate Change said it was unachievable to get net zero for Wales? 

And would he also reflect again on the M4 issue, because we spoke last week about the decision notice? I pointed out that his decision notice on the M4 said nothing whatever about climate change, and twice the First Minister interrupted me and claimed that it did. Fortunately for him, it's only recorded as 'interruption' in our record. But will he reflect again that when he ruled out the M4, he said nothing about climate change in that decision notice, which is the legally binding document, and he did that for good reason, because the inspector concluded that the scheme would, perhaps uniquely, be carbon neutral over time?

Llywydd, I want us to have the most ambitious, achievable climate change targets that we can put in place. For that, we rely on the climate change commission and their advice. If the context across the United Kingdom changes, if we have a different Government in the United Kingdom pursuing different policies there, such as the green new deal that my party have been talking about this week, then, of course, the advice from the climate change commission will need to be sought again in that new context. And I want us, in Wales, to be as ambitious as we possibly can be, within the limits of those who know the most about the topic and provide us with the most authoritative advice. 

In my decision on the M4, to say it again, I distinguished between the financial costs of the M4 relief road, which I concluded were not sustainable 10 years into austerity, and the environmental matters. And I rehearsed the environmental matters there. And I've read in detail what the inspector's report said about carbon neutrality. And from memory—I'll have to check, and I will write to the Member to tell him if I've remembered it incorrectly—with the series of assumptions that the inspector made, he said that this road would be carbon neutral by 2073. Now, if you think that that's sufficiently ambitious for us, then I certainly don't.