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

Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, under a UK Labour Government, and a Welsh Government, can you confirm whether taxes will go up or down?

Taxes will rise for some people when the next Labour Government, at a UK level, comes into office on 13 December. And that's absolutely right and proper, because we need a fairer distribution of the burden of taxation in the United Kingdom. My party made a manifesto commitment at the last Assembly elections that we would not vary the rates of income tax that have been devolved to the National Assembly during this Assembly term, and that will remain our commitment until the next election, when, with all other political parties, we will be able to make fresh proposals in manifestos.

First Minister, I finally got a straight answer to a very straight question that taxes will actually go up under the Labour Party. And, of course, another person who wasn't afraid to say that everyone will have to pay more tax under a UK Labour Government was John McDonnell, who finally admitted yesterday that many of the party's policies will affect the entire population. And, of course, as you've just said, where a UK Labour Government leads, the Welsh Government will follow, and your own manifesto commits to asking for a little more from those with the broadest shoulders, making sure that everyone pays what they owe. And we all know what that means—that means taxes going very high under the Labour Party.

Of course one thing that was conveniently not mentioned in your manifesto yesterday was Welsh Labour's tax plans for social care. When are you intending to come clean to the people of Wales and confirm that you are about to start taxing them more and more for social care in the future?

Well, Llywydd, let's put the record straight on a number of those matters. Labour will raise more tax from individuals earning more than £80,000 a year. I absolutely welcome our intention to do that. We will end the horror of universal credit in this country, where the poorest people in our land live in fear of the reforms that his party has introduced, and we will do that by taking a small amount of extra money from people who can very well afford to make that contribution.

We will raise corporation tax back to where it was when his party came into power—back to 26 per cent: still less than Belgium, still less than Australia, still less than New Zealand, still less than Canada, still less than Germany, still less than France, still less than the United States of America. But we will do that because we know that far too many businesses in this country act to escape the burden of taxation that they ought to play their share in carrying.

As far as social care is concerned, wouldn't it be good, Llywydd, if the Green Paper that his party has promised for five years had seen the light of day before the general election? We continue to do the detailed work, working with Professor Gerry Holtham and other experts, on how we will fund a social care system for the future here in Wales that will respect those older people who currently don't have the services that they would wish to see as they get into older age. I notice that the Conservative Party manifesto is magnificently silent on this point, Llywydd. We carry out our work in plain sight. We report it every time the group meets. In his party's manifesto this is hidden from anybody.

Well, it's quite clear, First Minister, that your spending commitments in your manifesto will actually bankrupt our country. We were nearly bankrupt back in 2010 when we had £150 billion deficit because of your mismanagement of the economy. But it's not just social care that your Government is planning to force taxpayers to pay even more for, though, is it? Under your Government Wales has the most expensive business rates multiplier in Britain at 52.6p in the pound. We have the highest commercial property tax in the UK on properties over £1 million. Wales's tourism sector will be stifled by the potential introduction of a tourism tax. Our independent schools will lose charitable rate relief where they're registered as charities, and only last month, new hypothecated and broad-based Welsh tax specifically directed at enabling the curriculum transition was being mooted. And let's not forget your party's plans for inheritance tax, which will mean even more hard-working taxpayers' money being filtered back to the state. And that's the Labour Party all over, isn't it, First Minister—taxing our businesses, taxing our land and taxing our people? Is there nothing out of bounds when it comes to generating taxes for the Labour Party? And will you now come clean to the people of Wales and tell us exactly how much a Labour Government at both ends of the M4 will cost?

Well, Llywydd, it is indeed the Conservative and reactionary party that we are offered this afternoon—a party stuck in the economy of the past, their ideas not a jot advanced over those that they have put and seen rejected by people in Wales time after time after time.

The Labour manifesto in this election, Llywydd, will move the United Kingdom into the European mainstream. The proportion of our economy that we will spend on public services in the United Kingdom under a new Labour Government will be the same percentage as is spent in France and in Germany—in Germany, the most successful economy in the whole of Europe. And why is that? That is because we understand, as they understand, that you have to invest in order to create the conditions of economic success.

We have had a decade of Tory starvation—starvation in investment in our public services, starvation in the sorts of infrastructure investments that would have made a difference to productivity across the whole of the United Kingdom. A Labour Government here in the United Kingdom will work with a Labour Government here in Wales to make sure that we are able to repair the damage done by the Conservative Party, to create an economy here that offers us hope for the future, and I'm very pleased indeed to have been able to get that on the record again this afternoon.

Plaid Cymru leader, Adam Price.

First Minister, in 2017, the Labour manifesto contained an explicit commitment to devolve policing to Wales. Your 2019 manifesto does not. Why?

Because, Llywydd, in the meantime, we established and have seen the report of the Thomas commission, which provides a comprehensive set of recommendations for the whole of the justice system here in Wales, not simply policing. That report was published in the same week as the general election was called. My party's manifesto refers directly to the major conclusion of the Thomas commission, that the justice system is not serving people well in Wales, and makes a commitment to put that right, using the Thomas report as the basis for doing so.

Yes, you're right, the manifesto does refer to the report, and it uses the language of 'working with' and 'considering the report', but why couldn't there be a cast-iron commitment at least to devolve policing, and then to go further and deliver the recommendations of the report? This is a rowing back, effectively, from the position that you had in the 2017 manifesto. Now, the paper 'Reforming our Union', which you published recently, says the Barnett formula should be replaced by, and I quote,

'a new relative needs-based system implemented, within a comprehensive and consistent fiscal framework'.

Now, in your manifesto, your 2019 manifesto, there is a reference to that document, yes, but only in the context, yet again, of it being considered by a constitutional convention. On the Barnett formula, you merely refer to long-term reform of how the UK allocates public expenditure. Now, we've been awaiting that long-term reform, haven't we, since the Barnett formula was first introduced as a temporary measure by the Callaghan Labour Government in 1978. Now, can you say if your party is explicitly committing to scrapping the Barnett formula, and, if so, by what date?

Well, Llywydd, I am very glad that the Labour manifesto at this election contains two specific commitments in the fields that Adam Price refers to. It does indeed refer directly to the 20-point plan that this Government has published, which is a serious plan for the future of the United Kingdom, a future in which my party wants to see a successful Wales in that successful United Kingdom in a successful European Union. And to have our report directly recognised as one of the foundational documents of the constitutional convention that we will set up I think is a recognition of the seriousness with which that document has been taken since its publication.

Quite separately, and in a different part of our manifesto, we refer to reform of the way in which funding flows through the whole of the United Kingdom, and making that funding flow based on an assessment of relative need. That is inevitably a reform of the Barnett formula, and it's there in Labour's manifesto for anybody to see. 

Well the paragraph, actually, on the need for reform is exactly the same. It's cut and pasted from the 2017 manifesto. I would have—. Given that you have set out this 20-point plan—and it's good to have references in a manifesto, but I would have expected progress, that you actually would have been able to make a cast-iron explicit manifesto commitment to scrapping the Barnett formula, and you don't do that in either your Welsh or UK manifestos. 

Let's stay with funding. Your Welsh manifesto says that Scotland will receive at least £100 billion of additional resources over the two terms of a Labour Government—£10 billion will go to a new national transformation fund to build 120,000 new homes in Scotland, another £6 billion to retrofit existing homes, the new Scottish national investment bank will get £20 billion to fund a wide range of projects. Now, if Wales were to be funded on this scale, we should expect at least an additional £60 billion, but there's no such explicit commitment in either your UK or Welsh manifestos. Why are you so detailed on Scotland, even in your Welsh manifesto, and so silent on Wales?

Well, Llywydd, in his first question to me this afternoon, the leader of Plaid Cymru criticised the Labour manifesto for saying something different on policing to 2017 and, in his second question, he criticised the manifesto for saying the same as it did in 2017. The truth of the matter is that we rewrite our manifesto where there are new things that we have to take into account and, where there are outstanding commitments that we want to progress, then of course we repeat them there.

A UK Labour Government, Llywydd, will transform the funding available to Wales. There will be £3.4 billion more available to invest in the running of public services here in Wales than we have had under the current Government, remembering, Llywydd, that, if the resources available to us had simply gone up in line with the growth of the economy, we would already be £4 billion better off than we are today. Labour's manifesto fills that gap and will allow public services in Wales and people who rely on them to have the sort of services that they deserve. And, as far as public expenditure on investment is concerned, our manifesto makes an explicit commitment to the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon—£1.3 billion of capital investment there. It makes a specific commitment to advancing the Wylfa project on the island of Anglesey—a £20 billion investment in the Welsh economy. It gives us a share in the great new programmes of transformation that a Labour Government will bring about and, here in Wales, we will see not just revenue to allow us to reinvest in our public services, but an ability to reconstruct the infrastructure that a successful economy allows on a scale that has been entirely missing over the last 10 years. And people in Wales who want to see that happen should be voting for it on 12 December.

The leader of the Brexit Party, Mark Reckless. 

Well, First Minister, that £3.4 billion of Barnett consequential is dependent on a huge increase in public borrowing and, if you succeed in your aim to force the people of Wales and the UK to vote again and succeed in your campaign to remain, you will be banned from borrowing that money by European Union rules. 

Now, First Minister, Labour's manifesto has promised to build 100,000 council houses every year in England—how many will you be building in Wales?

Well, I'm able to provide the Member with the figures that we have for council house building in Wales as projected over the coming period. By the end of 2021, there will have been over 800 new council houses built in the city of Cardiff; there will be 150 new council houses built in Powys; there will be 176 new council houses built in Ynys Môn. So, in an unbroken line from the south-east to the north-west of Wales, there will be hundreds of new council houses built under a Labour Government, under existing rules, and a Labour Government in Westminster, providing us with the investment we need, will see the pace of that production accelerate over the years of the next Labour Government. 

First Minister, given you only built 57 council houses last year, people can judge the plausibility of that, or otherwise, for themselves. You have said that you are going to—and I quote your manifesto here in 2016:

'We will deliver an extra 20,000 affordable homes in the next term'.

Yet that implies 4,000 a year. You've been averaging only 2,500 a year. Is it really plausible that you are going to overcome that deficit in the next two years?

Now, the UK Labour commitment is for 100,000 council houses per year in England, yet since 2009-10 in Wales—and let's look at the record, rather than your claims for the following year—only 153 council houses were built in all those years. In six of those years, local authorities did not build any council houses at all. Given Wales only managed 57 last year, this compares to 5,600 that should have been built if you were to match your party's pie-in-the-sky promise for England. What preparations has the Welsh Government made, if any, for a near hundredfold increase in council house building?

Well, Llywydd, the first question was whether we have confidence that we will build 20,000 affordable homes during this Assembly, and the answer to that question is 'yes'—we will reach that figure, and I believe we will exceed it, during this Assembly term.

The reason why councils haven't been able to build houses in Wales is because of the policies pursued by the party of which he was then a Member and marched through lobbies in the House of Commons to support whenever he had the opportunity.

[Inaudible.]—how many did you build then?

I can hear—I can hear the nonsense being offered to me, Llywydd, from my left in the Chamber. That party's policies, from the days of Mrs Thatcher onwards, have led to a decimation of council stock right across the United Kingdom. It's why we've abolished the right to buy here in Wales—to preserve council houses in those parts of Wales where young families need them to get on the housing ladder and where that ability has been stripped away from them because of the actions of his party, with the support of Mr Reckless whenever he had the chance to do so.

Now that we have an opportunity to reverse that position, to get councils building houses again, I am immensely cheered by the appetite of our local authority partners of all parties to take advantage of the new opportunities that there will be there. That's why I was able to give those figures to Mark Reckless in my initial answer—figures that demonstrate the appetite among councils that are under Labour control, under Plaid Cymru control, under no control of any council. Right across Wales, there are councils that want to build council houses, because they know the urgency of the need. We are determined to do it here in the Welsh Government, and, with a Labour Government in Westminster, our ability to do that will be immensely improved.