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

Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, one cannot begin to imagine the grief of parents who suffer the loss of a child. As reported by BBC Wales Investigates last night, an inquest found that the healthcare provided to Sarah Handy contributed to her baby's death in 2017. Her case is one of 140 being reviewed to establish whether mothers and babies were harmed while receiving care at Cwm Taf Morgannwg maternity units. Rebecca Long-Bailey, a Labour leadership candidate, called for a public inquiry into maternity failures at the health board, only to retract her comments later. The Labour leader of Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council says it's 'an absolute scandal' that nobody on the health board has been held to account. He's backing Mrs Handy's call for a criminal investigation. Are you? 

Well, Llywydd, I agree with what Adam Price said at the start, that a loss of a child in any circumstances, and even more so in circumstances that might have been preventable, cannot be imagined in the impact that that has in the lives of families.

I've heard calls for a criminal investigation. That will be entirely a matter for the police and not a matter for me, and I'm going to say nothing on that subject this afternoon that could be interpreted in any way as prejudicing the police's ability to discharge their responsibilities.

In last night's programme, Andrew Morgan also said that when there were calls for the resignation of Cwm Taf's chief executive, he was asked not to speak out. Do you agree that any attempt to gag an elected representative is totally unacceptable? And will he launch his own investigation to see whether the allegations that Mr Morgan made vis-à-vis the health board are true?

Cwm Taf is not the only health board where there are serious questions. Of course, Betsi Cadwaladr is now in its fifth year of special measures, and it has an alarming rate of patient safety incidents. Between November 2017 and December 2019, there were 520 incidents within Betsi that resulted in death or serious harm. That total is higher than all the other health boards in Wales combined. Now, there is either a serious underlying problem within Betsi or there is severe underreporting elsewhere in Wales. Which is it?

Llywydd, I think the leader of RCT is able to speak for himself. I know him very well and hold him in very high regard. He's made no request of me, and I'm sure that he's more than capable of doing so for himself, should he wish to do so.

The figures in Betsi Cadwaladr are, I believe, a sign of a health board in which reporting incidents and learning from them has become part of its culture, and that is something that we want to see everywhere in Wales. We regularly have this exchange on the floor of the Assembly, where we say that we want a learning culture, we say we want a culture in health boards where people are not afraid to speak up and have things recorded, and then when that happens, we have questions that say, 'Oh, everything must be awful, look at the incidents that are reported.' I just don't think we can have it both ways. I think the fact that there are figures in Betsi Cadwaladr that demonstrate that staff are willing to report things shows that there is a culture there now that wants to learn from the way that things are conducted, and that maybe wasn't the case there not that many years ago.

Between December 2018 and December 2019—the figures released just today—there were 41 incidents resulting in death registered within Betsi. That's 53 per cent of all such deaths reported by Welsh health boards in total. That's obviously disproportionately high when you consider that health board covers just about 20 per cent of the population of Wales.

If I've understood the First Minister correctly, what he is saying—but he can respond to confirm whether my understanding is correct—is, in response to my question, he seems to be of the view that there is underreporting of serious incidents in the rest of Wales and that there, presumably, are deaths as a result of incidents that are unreported in the rest of Wales, which, of course, was one of the most serious charges in the report into the maternity services in Cwm Taf.

So, is the First Minister saying now that the key failing, the lack of reporting of serious incidents that was at the heart of the problem at Cwm Taf, is actually a general problem in other health boards, apart from Betsi, throughout Wales?

I must say, Llywydd, I think that is a complete farrago. It's simply building one sort of unsubstantiated assertion on top of another. I said no such thing, nor would I. What I am saying here is that we want a culture in the NHS in Wales where, when things go wrong, people feel empowered to speak up, that things are reported, and things are learned as a result of those reports being made. I want to see that in every part of Wales. And the Member's attempt to try and drag the NHS through the mud once again this afternoon—because that's what he does, and he does it ever so regularly here, he does it very regularly here, he did it again this afternoon—doesn't do him any good, and it certainly doesn't do any good to patients in the Welsh health service.

Leader of the opposition, Paul Davies.

Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, last week, it was reported that the A465 Heads of the Valleys road is facing possible further delays and, as you know, it's already significantly over budget. That road was due to be finished at the end of last year. Could you tell us when the Heads of the Valleys road will be completed, and can you also confirm whether the Welsh Government will be spending any additional resources in excess of the current budget to ensure the road is finally completed?

Llywydd, the timescales for the completion of the road remain as set out in the statement made by my colleague Ken Skates when he last reported this matter to the floor of the National Assembly. Those timescales have not altered. The Minister will make a further statement on progress in completion of that section of the Heads of the Valleys road.

The budget for the completion is beyond what had originally been anticipated. That is partly explained by the challenging topography that the constructors have faced in making their way through one of the biggest gorges that we've ever built a road of this sort through in Wales. There have been disputes between the Welsh Government and the contractor over some of the other costs that have been raised with us, and they remain subject to ongoing arbitration between the parties. 

First Minister, this particular stretch of road is just one example of many of the frustrations that communities across Wales have had with the Welsh Government's handling of road infrastructure projects. At the end of last year, the Welsh Infrastructure Alliance made it clear in their report that significant investment is required in Wales's trunk road network and more certainty is required on the delivery timescales of schemes set out in the national transport plan—and that's entirely true, First Minister. In west Wales, the continual calls to dual the A40 have simply fallen on deaf ears. And, of course, the decision not to press ahead with a solution to the M4 has once again left communities along that corridor frustrated and annoyed.

In 2011, the Wales Audit Office found that major transport projects had cost substantially more and taken longer to complete than expected, with overspends totalling £226 million. This took place under a Labour Government. First Minister, do you accept that lessons simply haven't been learned from that damning report, and do you recognise the very distressing impact that your Government's mismanagement of road projects is having on people's lives across Wales?

Llywydd, if I thought for a moment there was a lesson to be learned from the party responsible for the HS2 line and the billions—. He talks to me about £226 million; that's barely a week's overspend in his Government's handling of HS2, where there are billions—billions and billions of pounds. That's a project dreamed up by his party, entirely the responsibility of his party. He thinks that he can come here and criticise us for the way that we conduct things when his party is a scandal across the whole of Europe for the way that it has conducted itself in relation to that transport programme.

He quotes me a report of 2011. In 2011, we were at the very start of the year-by-year slash and burn through the capital programme of this Labour Government by his Government at Westminster. If we had the budget today that we'd had back then, we would be able to do more in a whole range of capital investments here in Wales.

I'm not apologising for the record of the Welsh Government: the Newtown bypass, completed on budget and on time; the work that we are doing in Valleys communities that his party would quite certainly never contemplate spending. In every part of Wales, this Government invests to the very fullest extent that we are able, despite the depredations of austerity that his party has imposed on us. And those things are appreciated—far from his carping away at the way things happen—those things are appreciated in every part of Wales as well.

Well, you should apologise, First Minister, for the mismanagement of this particular project, and you should be apologising to the people of Wales for other projects that your Government has mismanaged. It's a fact that communities are frustrated with the Welsh Government's approach to road infrastructure here in Wales, and there seems, to me, little accountability from Ministers for your Government's mismanagement. 

Now, First Minister, you will be aware of plans by Cardiff Council to introduce a congestion charge—or a Valleys tax, as your own Members have called it—to charge non-residents to travel in and out of Cardiff. Now, those plans have been criticised by your colleague the Member for Caerphilly, who has made it clear that the charge should not be brought in unless there are clear alternatives to car use, and that the charge should also apply to Cardiff residents as well. The Member for Blaenau Gwent has rightly called it a Valleys tax.

Now, it's a fact that this scheme needs Welsh Government approval before it can be implemented. So, First Minister, is it your Government's intention to support Cardiff Council and sign off this Valleys tax? Do you genuinely believe that Cardiff's public transport system could handle the significant increase in demand that could come as a result of this proposal? And if you do sign off this proposal, how will you avoid creating an us-and-them environment between the Valleys and the capital?

Llywydd, lectures from the Member on public transport, from the party that cancelled the electrification of the main line here in Wales—do you remember that? I wonder if the Member remembers. No, I think he doesn't. He's forgotten that his party promised to electrify the main railway line all the way to Swansea, only then to turn to turn its back on the promise that it had made to people in Wales. He wants to ask me about public transport. Let's look at his record, at his party's record, for a moment.

As far as Cardiff Council's proposals are concerned, I am glad that Cardiff city council is responding in an imaginative and determined way to the impact of climate change and the impact of air quality here in our capital city—the most commuted capital anywhere in the United Kingdom. So, I don't think that it is right simply to dismiss proposals that the council has come up with, because they are a serious response to a serious set of issues.

But the Member is right to say that of course there is a responsibility on the Welsh Government to interrogate those proposals in a regional context. That is exactly what the Minister for transport said when those plans were announced. That's why we as a Welsh Government have set up an investigation into demand management, not just in Cardiff, but in the wider region, and the study will look at the benefits and challenges of different demand-management approaches, and we will use that to inform national and regional policy. We deserve, people in Cardiff and people around Cardiff deserve, to look at serious proposals seriously, to look at other alternatives that there may be there, and to do so in the context of the climate change emergency that faces us all. Cardiff's proposals are intended to be a serious response to that situation.

Leader of the Brexit Party, Mark Reckless.

Can I wish all Members a happy Brexit day this Friday? Not least the leader of Plaid Cymru, who I commend on the positive approach that he has taken this week.

First Minister, do you support the even more positive approach being taken by the Royal Mint in Llantrisant? For two weeks, they are offering bespoke Brexit tours. I'm looking forward to taking my children to strike their very own Brexit 50p coins, wishing 'Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations'. On Brexit day, the Royal Mint is even opening through the night, with public tours every 15 minutes. With Nathan Gill coming to Llantrisant on Friday to operate the coin press as his final MEP engagement, can I ask the First Minister what you will be doing to mark Brexit day?

Llywydd, I will be chairing a meeting of the Joint Ministerial Committee (European Negotiations) here in Cardiff later this afternoon. It will involve the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. I was very pleased to welcome them to Wales this morning, their first engagement of this sort since the re-established Executive. Michael Gove will represent the United Kingdom Government at this afternoon's meeting. There, we will be having not a tour of a tourist attraction but we will be grappling seriously with the issues that face us as a United Kingdom as we leave the European Union. We will be talking about the strategic priorities for negotiations with the European Union. We will be talking about the way in which devolved administrations can be involved in the setting of mandates and the discharging of them in negotiations. That's what I and the Welsh Government will be focusing on this week and over the weeks and months to come.

Good. I think the First Minister had announced that he was going to be making a speech on Friday, but I would like to congratulate him about the meeting he has had today, because I think while the UK Government has understandably been focussed on other things, when there hasn't been a Northern Ireland Government, and when the Scottish Government is antagonistic, I think the Welsh Government has taken a lead in thinking through some of these post-Brexit issues and what the appropriate architecture should be for our intra-government liaisons in the UK.

I was pleased to meet Simon Hart in Tŷ Hywel earlier, and I hope that he will also recognise the strong lead that Welsh Government has been giving in this area. Will the First Minister, however, now also pledge to work with the leader of the opposition and with Members opposite to use their influence on UK Government Ministers to help push forward some of the ideas his Government has developed, and on which we all agree?

And could I also ask, in an effort to find common ground, whether he might reconsider the delete-and-replace-all approach to the Conservative Brexit motion tomorrow? It refers only to the potential benefits to Wales of Brexit, and, in trying to find common ground, it speaks relatively non-controversially about new free trade agreements, an immigration system that does not discriminate against non-EU, and a new approach to regional investment. It also calls upon Welsh Government to engage positively with the UK Government. So, I wonder if the First Minister could find his way to supporting it?

I thank the Member. The Secretaries of State for Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland will all be present at the JMC(EN) this afternoon. I thank the Member for what he said about the proposals that Wales has made to strengthen the way in which the United Kingdom can operate the other side of Brexit. I was glad to be able to discuss those directly with Arlene Foster and Michelle O'Neill this morning, and they will be part of an ongoing discussion about inter-governmental machinery that is discharged at the JMC.

I've been grateful to the leader of the opposition here for a number of opportunities to meet to talk about matters in relation to Brexit, the future of the United Kingdom and other important public policy issues. It has always been the position of these benches—it certainly was under my predecessor—that wherever there are constructive ideas that people want to contribute to these important public debates, of course, we are open to hearing them and to discussing them, and I certainly want to go on doing that into the future. Tomorrow's debate, Llywydd, will, I'm sure, have ample time on the floor of the Assembly for people to express their views.