1. What steps is the First Minister taking to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on young people in Wales? OQ55668

Llywydd, action has been taken across the Welsh Government to mitigate the impact of coronavirus on young people. New investments in training, apprenticeships, further and higher education, and mental health services are amongst the responses mobilised to address the challenges young people face.

First Minister, thank you for that. We know that the pandemic has had a huge impact on children and young people, and I very much welcome the commitment in the COVID reconstruction plan you published today that you will make sure that our young people do not lose out educationally or economically, and that you will support all of our young people to stay in education. 

Many young people who travel from Torfaen to Hereford college for their post-16 education are being prevented by Transport for Wales from boarding trains, despite holding season tickets to travel, and are instead being made to travel on buses, without social distancing, while other passengers are being prioritised for socially distanced train seats. Some young people have been left stranded or are arriving at college late. Do you share my concern, First Minister, that young people are being treated differently to other passengers, and what steps will the Welsh Government take to ensure that young people are not disadvantaged on public transport?

Well, Llywydd, of course I agree with Lynne Neagle that young people should not be disadvantaged for the sake of being young people. But I do know that it is the case that there are trains that can appear to have spaces on them, but those spaces are necessary in order to comply with the regulations that have to be observed by Transport for Wales on both sides of the border. Transport for Wales is providing 70 different bus services to help those young people who otherwise would be unable to go to college or to school in the normal way. An additional carriage has been added to a train arriving in Hereford at 08:53 in the morning since last week, in order to assist some of the young people that Lynne Neagle has referred to. But, travelling by bus, while it is often not as convenient as a train journey, for young people who are cohorting and who are together in a bubble for education purposes, it can be a way that allows those young people to travel safely together.

So, we continue to work on the issue, and while I absolutely agree that young people should not be treated differently for the sake of being young people, Transport for Wales, in very challenging circumstances, are working hard to make sure that Lynne Neagle's constituents, and young people in all parts of Wales, have the transport they need to be able to access their education. 

First Minister, a report by Barnardo's earlier this year highlighted the crisis that's facing fostering, with a 45 per cent rise in children needing foster care within Wales, and yet, conversely, a 51 per cent drop in the availability of foster carers because of the pandemic. Obviously, we can all appreciate the issues that this has thrown up for being able to find foster carers for young people desperately in need of them. Can you please outline what the Welsh Government is able to do to help to bring more parity back in this situation, to increase the number of foster carers we have, so that these children are able to get the support, within a family environment, that they so desperately need?

Llywydd, I thank Angela Burns for that. I think, earlier in the summer, when the Barnardo's report was published, we were able to correct some of the misreporting of those figures, because those figures do not reflect the position of foster care in Wales, where we've actually had quite a healthy recruitment of foster carers during the pandemic and where we have been able to go on making foster care places available to those young people who need them. Now it is, as Angela Burns will know, a constant effort to make sure that we are recruiting the people we need to offer foster care, sometimes to young people who've got some significant issues in their lives—sometimes those are physical disabilities, sometimes they are the legacy of their own histories. And we will go on to create a national fostering network here in Wales, to make sure that opportunities for people who wish to become foster carers, and young people who need foster caring, do not end at the boundaries of their own local authorities, mirroring some of the success we have had in the national adoption service. So, the position in Wales is not quite as the reporting of the Barnardo's report might have led some people to believe. It's been reasonably sustained in this very difficult period, but there's always more we want to do.

It's an issue of grave concern to me, in terms of the impact the pandemic and the restrictions are having on the well-being of young people—and people of all ages, for that matter. I hear anecdotal evidence from people working in medicine and related areas of an increase in suicide and self-harm. Will the Government as a matter of urgency gather and publish data on that so that we know what the situation is, and draw up a strategy on how to deal with issues of well-being, and provide clarity in terms of how they balance the need to deal with COVID with the need to ensure the well-being of people in considering which restrictions to introduce and which to lift, and so on?

Of course, these issues go hand in hand. We do know that the period of coronavirus has been an extremely difficult period for a great number of young people here in Wales. That is why we have strengthened the services that we have to support young people—more funding for higher education and further education to support the well-being of young people as they study, more funding for our schools so that we could have more people to assist within the services that we already offer, and also more support through Meic. As I'm sure Rhun ap Iorwerth knows, Meic is a telephone line where young people can speak to others up to midnight. We have also given more funding to Meic, so that those services will be available throughout the current financial year. And, of course, we are collecting data in the programmes that we run and we publish that data. If there is anything specific that Rhun ap Iorwerth wishes to see, of course I'd be very happy to discuss that with him and to give him that information if it's available.

Question 2 [OQ55631] has been withdrawn, and so, question 3, Caroline Jones.