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

Given the seriousness of what's happened at Cwm Taf, should we not have expected a Labour shadow Cabinet Minister speaking at the Senedd to have familiarised themselves with this tragic case? Or is it simply true that Wales matters as little to the Labour frontbench in Westminster as it does to the Tories? 

Llywydd, the events at Cwm Taf deserve a more serious response than the one we've just been offered by the leader of Plaid Cymru. Whether a frontbench spokesman was completely familiar with the details is hardly of any relevance to the mothers and families caught up in events at Cwm Taf. This Government has been focused and the Minister has been focused on making sure that those mothers' concerns are properly responded to, that there is every opportunity for them to contribute to the process of putting right what went wrong at Cwm Taf. Those are the things that matter to those families and to patients in the Cwm Taf area, and the attempt to turn it into some trivial political knockabout does them and him no credit at all. 

Surely, the fact that a Labour shadow Cabinet Minister called for an inquiry on Friday, then had to withdraw that on the Sunday, simply because they hadn't shown I think what we would expect from them, which is a decent level of interest in what is happening to people in Wales—. It happened on the Friday, and you'd have thought, having been caught out once by their indifference and ignorance in relation to what is happening in Wales, you would have briefed Richard Burgon on the Sunday. It wasn't just a moment of utter embarrassment to the Labour Party, as Alun Davies said. His silence in not being able to respond to me, in terms of what's happening in the NHS in Wales, spoke volumes about an indifference to Wales that borders on contempt. 

Now, one area that I did agree with Richard Burgon—[Interruption.] One area I did agree with Richard Burgon on is in relation to the NHS. The President of the United States clearly, despite his denials earlier today, is a clear and present danger to the future of the NHS, but can you explain, therefore, why you will not be supporting our proposal in the motion set out before the Senedd to give this institution a constitutional veto on any trade deal that will imperil the NHS, and why you're not supporting our call to back the NHS protection Bill that Plaid Cymru MPs will be supporting in the next Westminster Parliament?

Llywydd, the Member has spent too long touring the television studios. His view of what matters to people in Wales is distorted by the hours he spends running Wales down in front of television audiences. And, in fact, he's a victim of his own propaganda if he believes that shadow Labour Members are somehow answerable to him. The NHS in Wales is controlled by a Labour Government with Labour Ministers here answering questions across this Chamber every week, and on every aspect of it. That's where decisions are made. If he doesn't understand devolution, luckily people in Wales do, and they'll take, I think, not kindly at all to his view that the things that he happens to say in a television studio are the way in which public services in Wales ought to be organised. [Interruption.]—I heard him say it, so he'll want to dwell, maybe, for a moment on that. 

The reason we won't be supporting Plaid Cymru Members on the floor of the House of Commons in the way that he suggests is because we are campaigning for a Government that would render the need for such a Bill entirely unnecessary. What this country needs is a Labour Government in Westminster prepared to stand up to Donald Trump, prepared to make it clear that our NHS is not up for sale, and then there will be no need for the sort of Bill that the Member refers to. We're still fighting this general election; we haven't already given it up. 

First Minister, I'd like to ask you, finally, to respond to some new information that's been released in relation to the now-rejected proposals to introduce unpaid breaks for nurses in the north. First of all, can you say whether you believe it is appropriate that your officials sought to involve the chief executive of Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, Gary Doherty, in political matters by sharing the text of a Plaid Cymru motion in the Senedd with him, to which he responded with, as he put it, 'a suggested line to take'?

He also states in his e-mail that the now-rescinded proposals to introduce unpaid breaks for nurses, condemned by the Royal College of Nursing and Unison as draconian and wholly unacceptable, are already operating in another health board in Wales. You have redacted the identity of the health board in question. Are you able to tell us now which one it is? And before you're tempted to say, 'These are operational matters', or 'Blame it on the Tories', are you prepared to acknowledge that, from Cwm Taf to Betsi, there is one person that is ultimately responsible, First Minister, for the NHS, and it's you?     

I'm responsible for the NHS in Wales, Llywydd, and I'm very proud indeed to be in that position. I'm very proud indeed of everything that our NHS does every single day, of the thousands of people who work in it, of the hundreds of thousands of people who are treated by it here in Wales, and whose levels of satisfaction with the Welsh NHS rose again in our national survey earlier this year. I am responsible, I'm proud to be responsible, and I'm very glad indeed that, here in Wales, we have the strong support of the Welsh public for the sort of NHS that we are determined to preserve here—an NHS publicly provided, publicly funded, available free at the point of use. That's the sort of NHS that I'm responsible for, and that's the sort of NHS I intend to go on being responsible for. 

I am astonished that the leader of Plaid Cymru believes that a motion placed in front of the National Assembly is somehow a political document. It is a public document; it is available to anybody to read. The idea that it could not be drawn to the attention of a health board in which it is named is nonsensical to the point that baffles me that the Member should have even thought that it was worth raising. I don't know which other health board has similar arrangements, nor do I need to know. I'm not responsible for nurse rotas; I'm responsible for the policy, the direction and the funding of the national health service.  

Leader of the opposition, Paul Davies. 

Diolch, Llywydd. 

First Minister, today's programme for international student assessment results once again confirm that Wales has remained the lowest-performing country within the United Kingdom for all subjects, despite improvements being made. Why is it that there have been no statistically significant improvements in Wales's PISA scores in reading and maths since 2006? 

Well, Llywydd, it is disappointing that, on a day when young people in Wales and those who teach them have received results that show that, uniquely in the United Kingdom, Wales has improved its position in relation to reading, science and mathematics, the leader of the opposition here cannot find a single good word—not a single good word—to say for those young people and their teachers. Because I think that is the story that our schools will be hearing today—that, of course the position is not perfect, but the news today is positive. It shows improvement in all three domains; no other part of the United Kingdom is able to demonstrate that. There are many other things in the PISA results today that we should be celebrating, and we should be recognising the efforts that children and their teachers have made. 

Well, clearly, First Minister, you weren't listening. I did say that improvements have been made, but you can't dress this up because we are still at the bottom of the league table of the United Kingdom. Despite the hard work of those in the teaching profession, Wales's science scores are still significantly worse than in 2006; Wales is ranked bottom of the UK nations in reading, maths and science; and Wales is the only UK nation to score below the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average in all PISA measures. It's quite clear, First Minister, that you and your Government are failing to significantly improve Wales's education system.

Now, I know and accept that the Welsh Government has announced a series of reforms, and only last month, Professor Calvin Jones of Cardiff Business School and Sophie Howe, the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, published the 'Fit for the Future Education in Wales' report, which called for a new hypothecated and broad-based Welsh tax, specifically directed at enabling the curriculum transition. Now, given that you confirmed last week that taxes will go up under a Labour Government, can you confirm, therefore, whether the Welsh Government will be bringing forward a Welsh education tax?

I've never heard this idea other than from the Member himself. It has no resonance whatsoever with this Welsh Government. The truth of today's results is that Wales is now at the international average in all three subjects for the first time ever; that in mathematics and science, Wales performs at the same level as Northern Ireland and Scotland; and that we have the best ever scores in reading and maths and improvement in science as well. It's not where we want to be. It's not where our ambitions for the next PISA round want us to be, but you will never bring about improvements in a system if all you manage to do is forever—[Interruption.] I can hear the Member, I can hear him. He doesn't need to keep repeating it, I can hear him. The first few times that he thinks that it's a sensible thing to try and interrupt from where he is sitting, it doesn't help him, it doesn't help anybody trying to make sense of these things, and it certainly doesn't help children and young people in our schools, who have achieved something very worthwhile in these PISA results, to act as though it didn't count for anything.

But, First Minister, we are still at the bottom of the UK league table when it comes to these results. Yes, of course I accept that there have been improvements, but you are quite clearly failing our children and young people because we should have seen much better improvement over the last few years.

Now, of course, the 'Fit for the Future Education in Wales' report, which, clearly, you want to dismiss, has called for GCSEs to be scrapped, and as we're all aware, Qualifications Wales is launching a consultation on the future of GCSEs and other qualifications taken by 16-year-olds. First Minister, it is crucial that the Welsh Government gets this right and that Welsh learners will not be let down like the learners of the previous decade have been.

Now, it is an undeniable fact that Wales's 2019 GCSE results are on a par with 2007. Our PISA results, as I've just said, are still the worst in the UK, and only 29 per cent of young people in Wales actually go to university. First Minister, what reassurances can you offer learners across Wales as well as families and education providers that the Welsh Government will take responsibility for its record of delivery, and that, moving forward, no stone will be left unturned in ensuring that learners in Wales have access to an education system that is fit for the twenty-first century?

Well, Llywydd, this Government has the most ambitious programme of reform in the education system of any Government anywhere in the United Kingdom. It's a programme for reform that the OECD has endorsed again today as the basis for the improvements that you have already seen.

The Member is right to say that PISA is only one of the measures that we use to understand the success of our education system. That's why we were so pleased to see in the summer that the best A-level results in Wales are better than any region of England or of Northern Ireland. I answered a question from another of his Members last week in relation to the report to which he refers and Qualifications Wales. The report will be a useful contribution to the consultation that Qualifications Wales is carrying out, but in the end, it will be Qualifications Wales that will be responsible for making representations to the Welsh Government as to how we have a qualifications system that stands alongside our new curriculum, and that all of that underpins our ambition. And we are as ambitious as anybody in Wales for our young people to get the best possible education to achieve everything that we would want them to achieve and then to go on to have chances in this economy, where those chances are fairly distributed rather than the sharply unequal society that his party has been determined to create.

Leader of the Brexit Party, Mark Reckless.

Diolch, Llywydd. May I congratulate the First Minister, the education secretary, the 107 schools and the 3,165 learners who took part in the PISA tests? They are significantly better than the very poor results we saw in 2016, and I think it's appropriate to put that on the record. If it had been the other way, I would have been coruscating in my criticism.

Can I, however, ask about the results? On the science and the maths, there is a one or two-point, very fractional, difference where we're below the OECD average. On reading, it is rather larger; there's a seven-point gap on those. And while it's true for the Welsh Government to say that these results are, individually, across the three areas, in line and not statistically significant when they are fractionally below, is it not the case that, in aggregate, being below in all three, including a gap that's close to statistically significant on reading, means that the overall claim cannot necessarily be made that Wales has performed in line on an aggregate basis?

Llywydd, let me begin by thanking the Member for the way in which he introduced his question. It surely is a day to recognise the efforts that have been made and the achievements that have resulted.

He is right to point to the fact that the gap in reading is the largest of all three, and when he has a chance, as I can see he has already begun, to look into the detail of the results, he will see that that is partly driven by the gap between boys and girls in reading scores that we have here in Wales. And we know that there is work that we have to do to persuade young men to take an interest in improving their literacy ability and that that is there in the results that we see.

There is evidence in the figures of Wales's relative improvement over time in reading. We have improved our position in the OECD rankings of different countries on reading, as well as the other two domains, but we recognise, of course, that there is more that we need to do, particularly in tackling the phenomenon, which is true internationally—it's true in every single OECD country—that young women outrank young men when it comes to reading. That is a more challenging problem in some parts of Wales, and there's more that we will want to do, and our new curriculum, we believe, will help us to do that.

Well, I think what Welsh Government has said in response to these results is broadly fair, and I think the points about the OECD comparisons are well worth noting in light of what we saw three years ago and the difference in the debate there. And I think that should be reflected in our comments.

Will the First Minister, though, accept that the picture is not as rosy in the intra-UK comparisons? And while, for maths and science, the gaps with Scotland and Northern Ireland are not statistically significant, we do see England doing significantly better than both us and the OECD, and are there any lessons we can learn from England in that respect? Does the First Minister also accept there is a particular issue in reading, where the results have bounced back from a particularly poor result in 2016, compared to, say, maths, where we've seen quite sharp improvements for two cycles in a row, which we should note? But the results for reading—(a) it's a reversal of a bad result last time, rather than an improving trend, and (b) our results are, statistically, very significantly below the other three nations in the UK on reading, and I just wonder what the First Minister might think about that.

I just wonder, could he comment also on two other things I thought were significant? There was concern from headteachers in Wales reporting greater shortages or inadequacies of educational materials, for example textbooks and information technology equipment. Does he think that that is a fair concern for them to express? Finally, in terms of well-being—and this was a UK-wide rather than wheels-specific issue—quite a lot of young people were reporting being likely to feel worried or miserable, and I know, with the young people and education committee, we've done some work on this, but has the First Minister got anything to offer to those students?

I thank Mark Reckless for those additional questions. I think, as the education Minister has said, whenever she's been asked about this already today, and will have another opportunity on the floor of the Assembly, we've never suggested that these results are perfect. They are positive, and there are issues, in the reading domain particularly, that we will want to take up as a result of these scores and to see what we can do to improve them still further in the next round of PISA results.

In relation to resources, the Welsh Government is putting a major investment of £50 million into improving IT in the classroom. Of course, I would expect teachers and headteachers to say that if they had more resources, they could do better. But that is a major investment.

If you look at any international survey of reported well-being amongst young people in the United Kingdom, we come in the bottom half of the league table. That is a matter we should be concerned about, but it also, in some ways, reflects the way in which some of the questions in this test are phrased to get the raw material from which the answers are derived.

If I was looking for something positive in the results that you could say to those young people, then I would point to the fact that the disadvantage gap in Wales is significantly smaller than across the OECD and that young people in Wales are better able to overcome disadvantage as a result of the education that they receive in Wales than would be true over the OECD as a whole. So, a young person who comes into our school with a disadvantage gap is more likely to overcome that gap in Wales than across the OECD as a whole. I think that sort of positive message and that positive investment that our education service makes in young people, I hope makes its contribution, along with many other things, to trying to convey a message to those young people about their importance to us, about the value we attach to them and about how their well-being, as well as everything else they achieve, matters in their lives and to Welsh people as a whole.