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

Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, can you say if achieving a score of 500 in each domain of the PISA global education rankings, in reading, mathematics and science, is still the policy of your Government? And can you confirm that the figures for Wales will be published alongside all the other international figures on 3 December, unencumbered by the rules around pre-election period announcements? 

Well, Llywydd, our ambition for PISA is set out in our national mission for education. I've received no advice that suggests to me that those figures will not be published, but we will look to see what other administrations across the United Kingdom do, and we will take advice, as the Member would expect, from those who are responsible for policing any rules there are about publication of such data during a general election period.  

First Minister, I believe it's normal practice for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to give advance notice to Governments, summarising the scores before the official announcement. Have you already received such advance notice, and can you say if you expect significant progress to have been made to achieving your target? 

Llywydd, no advanced information has been communicated to the Welsh Government, and, of course, Adam Price makes an important point that these are the OECD's figures, and publication of them will, to an extent, be in their hands, not ours. But we've had no advance notice of the results of the latest round that will be published later this month—

December. 

In December, I beg your pardon. And, of course, we are hopeful that those results will reflect the real efforts that our young people in our schools make in those PISA tests. 

First Minister, your education Minister said in 2017 that we need to make progress in the next set of PISA results if we're to hit the next target. If the news for Wales on 3 December isn't positive at all, or isn't positive enough, what will the response of the Government be in that situation? Will you accept that the strategy isn't working? We've had a PISA target since 2006 after all. Will it be a catalyst for a much needed boost in funding for the education system in Wales? Or will you be tempted to do what you often do under these circumstances, which is to drop the target? 

Well, Llywydd, I don't recognise what the Member has said, and I'm certainly not going to speculate this afternoon on what I might say in a set of hypothetical circumstances that I've no idea what it would mean. It just seems a wholly meaningless question, and I'm not going to be able to provide it with a meaningful answer. 

The leader of the opposition, Paul Davies. 

Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, I'm sure you'll want to acknowledge this is the second anniversary of our colleague and friend Carl Sargeant's tragic death, and I'm sure you will want to join me in sending our thoughts and prayers to his family, his loved ones and all those affected at this time. 

First Minister, is it acceptable to pay an NHS manager almost £2,000 a day and allow him to work from his home in Spain? 

Well, Llywydd, let me begin by echoing what Paul Davies said. This is a week when many people in this Chamber will be thinking about our colleague and the hurt that is still there following his untimely death only two years ago. So, I'm very pleased indeed to put on record the commitment that this side of the Chamber has to remembering that and to thinking of those most closely associated with him.

Llywydd, the Member refers to a director in the Betsi Cadwaladr trust who has been appointed following the advice of the Public Accounts Committee, which said that the health board should take immediate and urgent action to appoint a director to assist the health board to carry out the necessary reforms. So, the health board has followed the advice of the committee, chaired by his colleague, and I'm sure he'll be glad that the health board has listened so attentively to that advice.

Oh, come on, First Minister. The Public Accounts Committee didn't tell the health board that he should be paid nearly £2,000 a day and actually operate from his home in Spain. They did not say that. And let's look at the facts, shall we? It's understood that under the deal agreed with the health board, management consultant, Phillip Burns, will earn more than £360,000 for a nine-month contract—£360,000 that could be used to recruit actual doctors and nurses, given that north Wales has the second-worst ratio of patients per senior doctor in the United Kingdom, £360,000 that could be spent tackling the high number of patients waiting more than 12 hours in accident and emergency departments, or £360,000 that could be used to help prepare the health board for the winter months. First Minister, do you accept that your Government has failed patients across north Wales, given that this money could have been used to deliver front-line services? And can you tell us what you're doing to rectify this very embarrassing situation?

Well, let me make two or three points in relation to the Member's questions. First of all, I see how fast he runs away from the advice of an Assembly committee when it doesn't suit him.

Dear, dear, dear. That's a pathetic excuse.

The Member thinks it is pathetic. Let me take him on, because he was the Chair of this committee once, and very keen indeed that its advice was followed. The committee makes advice. It said that this health board should urgently appoint somebody of this nature for this purpose. The health board goes and does it. It doesn't suit him then, so he wants to turn it into a question here. The reason that this person has to be paid what he is paid is because of the market that his Government has created in the NHS across our border. [Interruption.] Llywydd, these are exactly the sums of money that his colleagues in England are having to pay every day, and because there is a market created by people of that ilk who think that the NHS ought to be run in a market way, we end up having to pay sums of money of this sort. This is exactly in line with what organisations across our border run under the Government of his party are having to pay every day, and we are caught up in the backwash of the system that his party has created.

First Minister, that is simply not good enough. You are in charge of this health board. You are in charge of running this health board in north Wales, and let me tell you, under your stewardship, Betsi Cadwaladr health board is simply not fit for purpose, and the people of north Wales deserve better. It's unacceptable that whilst you're allowing managers to actually sun themselves up in Spain, people are desperately waiting for treatments and for services. Earlier this year, the Assembly's Public Accounts Committee actually reported that Welsh Government support has been insufficient, and that actions had little practical impact on changing the health board's performance. That's what the Public Accounts Committee reported earlier this year. So, when will your Government step up and show some real leadership on this issue, and what specific targets have you set to take Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board out of special measures?

So, when the advice of the committee suits him, Llywydd, he wants to parade it here. When it doesn't suit him, he wants to dismiss it. It's simply not an acceptable way of trying to conduct public business. Shall I just for a moment defend somebody who is being attacked on the floor of the Assembly, but isn't here, of course, to defend himself, because the individual that he has criticised this afternoon is actually working four days a week in the health board in north Wales, despite the things that he has said on the floor here this afternoon?

Llywydd, what we see is the old Tory trick. We see it every time there is an election. They think—as English providers said yesterday to his Government—that they can weaponise the NHS, that they can make it part of their campaign. Let me tell him now: he's tried it before, it didn't work then, and it's not going to work now either.

Leader of the Brexit Party, Mark Reckless. 

First Minister, 10 Welsh Labour MPs refused to support having an election. One of your AMs in my region has said it is a mistake of historic proportions. Another has said that it's unsafe to have any election until the electoral system is reformed and abuse of politicians is dealt with. Since that Labour AM, notwithstanding our own policies, told a female member of my group to 'eff off' just two weeks ago, and the real—. Do you not agree that is rank hypocrisy and that the real reason Labour resisted having an election is that you fear you will lose and you prefer to block Brexit in this House of Commons?

Well, Llywydd, if the Member has allegations to make about the conduct of any Member of this Assembly, then there are very well-understood ways in which that can be properly raised and investigated and making an allegation of that sort to me in First Minister's questions is certainly not the way for that to be resolved.

I am delighted there is an election. I'm looking forward to everything that I will do in it to persuade the people of Wales to go on doing what they have done for so many years: to support Labour candidates for a Labour Government that will make the real difference that they want to see in their lives.

First Minister, you are in charge of discipline within your group, and I note you look to wash your hands of such matters. Over the coming weeks, First Minister, you, your AMs and your MPs are going to find out exactly how voters feel about the way that you have treated them. You told them that you backed the referendum. You told them that you would respect the result. Yet, since, you've sought to block Brexit and deny their democratic vote. Now you will have your reckoning, will we see the same desperate displacement activity from you as we see from Plaid Cymru? Their ex-leader, Leanne Wood, is so keen on Government from Westminster that she said:

'This election is also about Wales' health service, education, and public services'.

Can we also again look forward to Welsh Labour MPs campaigning on the failings of our NHS?

Well, Llywydd, let me say again to the Member that if he has allegations he wants to make, then there are well-understood ways in which they can and should be made, and his conduct this afternoon is not in keeping with the responsibilities that he ought to exercise as the leader of his latest party.

Of course the election is more than about Brexit. It is about the future of our country, about the sort of country we want to have, about a Government that will invest in our public services, that will put an end to the age of austerity, that will offer people hope that a better future can be prepared for them in the future. That is why the Labour Party is so pleased to be fighting this election. That is the message we will be putting on the doorstep. But the choice in this election is between a backward-looking Conservative Party that has offered 10 years of nothing but cuts and devastation in our public services, and a Labour Government, committed to the future of the many people in this country, not simply the privileged few, and that will set out a prospectus that offers us all a future in which Wales can prosper inside a prosperous United Kingdom, and, as I hope, inside a prosperous European Union.