Questions now from the party leaders. The leader of the Welsh Conservatives, Paul Davies. 

Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, from the start of this week, people on low incomes in Wales will be able to claim £500 if they have to stay off work and self-isolate due to COVID-19. I'm pleased to see that those payments will now be backdated to 23 October. However, it remains the case that local authorities in Scotland and in England have been delivering the grants for some weeks and backdating them to 28 September. Now, the Minister for Health and Social Services has made it clear that Wales's payments have been delayed because the Welsh Government has had a

'practical challenge in getting all of our systems in place to make this work'. 

Can you tell us what those practical challenges are? And can you also tell us why the Welsh Government isn't backdating the payments to September, like in other parts of the UK, as surely this means that people on low incomes in Wales will be financially disadvantaged compared to people in England and in Scotland? 

Well, Llywydd, we backdate to 23 October, because that is when the firebreak period was introduced in Wales, and that gives us a reason for doing that. The purpose of the £500 is to assist people to self-isolate. It's no assistance to people to do that if the period of self-isolation has already been completed many, many weeks ago. The practical challenges are in designing a system that is not open to fraud, because we cannot have a system in which people simply self-declare that they have been asked to self-isolate and then claim £500 of public money. We need to be certain that if people get the £500, as we want them to do, because we want people to be able to self-isolate, then we need to know that those people have been asked to do so by our test, trace, protect system and, therefore, are bona fide claimants of this public money. 

Well, First Minister, it's absolutely crucial that those who need additional support throughout the pandemic have actually access to it, whether that's financial support for someone living on a low income that has to self-isolate, additional guidance and support for those who were previously on the shielding list or mental health support for those who simply don't feel like they're entitled to it. Now, First Minister, I'm sure you'll share my concerns about the news that a recent Mind Cymru survey found a third of adults and a quarter of young people failed to get help because they didn't think they deserved it. As you know, it's so important that intervention is provided as early as possible to stop some conditions escalating, and substantially improve outcomes for patients. You've recently reshuffled your Cabinet, which now recognises mental health as a significant policy area, therefore, can you tell us how the Welsh Government is responding to concerns from organisations like Mind Cymru about ensuring people are getting the help that they need, and what further action can the Welsh Government take to better communicate to people the importance of reaching out and accessing mental health support and services if they are struggling to cope during the pandemic? 

Llywydd, let me begin by agreeing with Paul Davies that getting the help you need for people who feel the pressure of these extraordinary months in their sense of mental health and well-being is very important indeed. And there is something for us all to think about in that result that people hadn't failed to get help in the sense they'd asked for it and help wasn't available; they hadn't gone looking for help, because they somehow didn't feel that they were in the right place to do so. That means, I think, that we have to make sure that we have as varied a repertoire of assistance for people as we can devise, because people who need help for mental health and mental well-being will want to access that help in a whole variety of ways.

One of the ways in which we have been able to do more is by funding Mind Cymru itself—I think that was the latest announcement that we've made £10 million-worth of additional investment in mental health services during the pandemic—because Mind operates at a community level, so it doesn't provide services to people who have acute psychotic conditions, but it does provide help to people who are just looking for that bit of additional support and advice and guidance, where community-based services can be the most significant. In that way, we are doing our best to try to make those services as available as possible to break down barriers that people may feel, to make sure they get that crucial support.

Let me just put one point to the Member, however, because he's referred twice so far to the crucial need for people to get the support that they need: this Government, with others, has been lobbying the UK Government to make sure that 35 per cent of all families in Wales below pensionable age do not lose over £1,000 when the Chancellor withdraws the £20 a week that had been added to universal credit during this pandemic. I wonder if he'd like to add his name to that call today, because that is genuinely crucial support that families in Wales no longer know that they can rely on.

Well, I know that, First Minister, you want to distract from talking about your responsibilities as a Government in order to avoid highlighting your failures—

Just try, just try.

—your failures when it comes to the health service, your failures when it comes to the education system—

You could have said 'yes'; you could have said 'yes'.

—and your failures when it comes to the economy.

First Minister, figures today show that 23 deaths were registered in care homes—almost triple the amount registered last week, which is a significant cause for concern—and yet, figures still aren't available to confirm exactly how many care homes in Wales are directly affected by COVID-19, and how many residents in Wales, so that the Welsh Government can support care settings more effectively. Now you'll be aware of the delays that some care home residents and staff have faced in getting test results back quickly and there's also been concern over the high rate of false positive test results that has also added significant pressure to the sector, and we now know that people are discharged from hospitals into care homes within days of receiving a positive COVID test, which I know you will agree is unacceptable. So, First Minister, as the challenges facing care homes across Wales continue, can you tell us how many care home residents and staff have been affected by COVID-19 in Wales? Can you also tell us what the Welsh Government is doing to turn around the time it takes care home staff and residents to get their COVID test results, and how it's addressing the issue of false positive tests? Given that the Welsh Government has commissioned further analysis of the discharge figures, can you tell us what further interventions are being considered to support care home residents and staff throughout this pandemic?

Well, Llywydd, this second wave of coronavirus has had an impact on care homes here in Wales, despite the very careful preparation that the sector made during the summer and the additional investment that the Welsh Government has made in that as well. This is a deadly and highly infectious disease, and as levels of coronavirus in the community rise, so the threats to closed communities, such as hospitals and care homes, rise as well, and it's a very sad number that the Member referred to at the start of his question.

As to test results, the delays in test results are almost exclusively from the lighthouse lab system, and those are not in our hands, although performance there has improved in the last three weeks and we look to that system to go on improving. When there is a positive case then we use the Welsh system, because that does get people results back within 24 or 48 hours, and we'll continue to do that. The false positive issue, I'm afraid, is not that significant an issue at the moment. False positives happen when there are very low levels of coronavirus. As the levels of coronavirus rise, then false positives don't occur in the same way. So, at the moment, it is not a problem that is the most significant one we face in the care home sector. It was a particular problem when levels of coronavirus were at their lowest ebb amongst care home staff, where positive results did turn out often not to be genuine, but I'm afraid as the numbers rise, then that is not the problem that it used to be.

As to the point that the Member raised about people discharged from hospital into care homes, there is a lot more analysis that is needed of those figures to make proper sense of them. We don't know where those tests were carried out. It is possible they were carried out in the care home to which the person who lives in that care home was being returned. It is possible that it happened not in the hospital episode before someone was discharged back into the care home, but in a previous hospital episode. So, there are important things that we need to learn about where the tests were carried out, when they were carried out and what impact they may have had. That is why we have said that we will carry out further analysis of the figures that were published yesterday, and I think it would be sensible for anybody to wait. The Member's been very keen on data in previous weeks in this Chamber and I think he would be wise to wait until we have that extra data before we draw any conclusions.

To end, Llywydd, by going back to the point I made to the Member: he could have offered us a simple 'yes', couldn't he? He could simply have said that, in the crucial support that he was keen to ask me about earlier, the £1,000 and more that 35 per cent of families in Wales are about to lose, he might just have added his voice to those of us who would like to persuade the Chancellor not to allow that to happen.

Leader of Plaid Cymru, Adam Price.

Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, according to media reports, Tata Steel UK is currently seeking £500 million of funding from the UK Government as part of the Project Birch initiative in order to sustain its future. Accepting this support, it's said, will require Tata to close both its two blast furnaces at Port Talbot and replace them with electric arc furnaces that will produce steel from scrap rather than iron ore. While this will reduce the emission of greenhouse gases in Wales, it will also lead to very significant redundancies among the steelworks' employees. If this happens, history tells us that the probability of the re-establishment when clean technology becomes available is small, and Wales will have lost a vital part of its industrial base. Would you agree that a policy of reducing UK greenhouse gases, while increasing them in other countries via imports, at the expense of Welsh workers jobs, would represent a short-term fix rather than a genuinely sustainable industrial strategy, and is the very opposite of a just transition to a decarbonised future?

Well, Llywydd, while I'm happy to agree with the final point that the Member raised, I'm not prepared to follow the path down which he made his argument. It is very important that we do not talk about steel making in Port Talbot as it is carried out today as though it has already been lost. And the company, I know, is very keen indeed that we don't talk about it in that way because it has customers that it is supplying, it has order books that it needs to fulfil. So, I am committed to doing everything that the Welsh Government can do to help create a sustainable future for steel making in the United Kingdom and here in Wales.

That can only be secured through proper discussions between the UK Government and the company. It's a matter of great disappointment that that has not happened properly already, and may have contributed to the decisions that the company has made—the fact that they have not been able to secure an agreement through Project Birch, despite many months of trying to persuade the UK Government to do so. I don't think that any of us are in a position to know what the outcome of that will be, and I don't think that we should talk about it in a way that undermines the company's current ability to go on trading, to go on providing jobs in Port Talbot and to secure a future for that community. 

History has taught us as well, hasn't it, First Minister, that we cannot rely on Westminster to solve Wales's economic problems. Indeed, to reverse the Prime Minister's logic, it is because Westminster has proven so disastrous to Wales that this Senedd exists. So, now is the time to show the difference that having our own Government can make, by bringing forward a counter proposal to protect jobs and livelihoods in Port Talbot and the surrounding area, including the protection of primary steel making.

The UK Government is reportedly being asked to part-nationalise the company. Isn't it even more important that the Welsh Government takes a stake in a company that is overwhelmingly Wales based in terms of its workforce, so that those workers and their communities have a seat at the table? Can you confirm that you would be prepared to do so? And, can you confirm that you are also developing a fully fledged alternative strategy for Port Talbot, based around maintaining the works in their current configuration in the short to medium term, investing in the development of hydrogen based steel production in Wales, and ensuring that the Port Talbot works is converted to use the new technology to produce carbon-neutral steel by 2035?

Well, Llywydd, the Senedd exists not because of the failure of the Boris Johnson Government, but because of the success of a Labour Government in making devolution happen in the first place. Devolution thrives when there is a Labour Government to support it, and devolution comes under the sorts of pressures that it is now under when we have a Conservative Government, and where you scratch the surface of the Conservative Party and all its old hostility to devolution rises back to the surface.

That's what happened yesterday, when the Prime Minister thought that he could show off in front of a few Conservative MPs from the north of England. But, we have the Senedd because of the Labour Party, and this Labour Party will continue to make sure that we use all of the powers that we have here—all the powers that we have of persuasion and the powers that we have to intervene—not at this point to make a counter proposal, but to work with the company on the proposals that it will want to bring forward.

We have a part to play in that, and part of what we bring to the table were the points that Adam Price made towards the end of his second question. We do want to see a carbon-neutral steel industry here in Wales. We do want to see that as soon as possible. It is why the steel institute that we are creating as part of the Swansea city deal is so important to the future of the steel industry here in Wales. It will bring all the power of research from the university in Swansea, and all the power of the local authorities, with the interest that they have in making the steelworks a success, to help to create the type of future for the steel industry that we want to see.

We will play our part in that, not at this point by developing counter proposals, but by trying to make sure that the company and the UK Government are able to get together, with the assistance that we can provide, to fashion a way forward for that industry.

Do you agree, First Minister, that the only secure and sustainable future for Port Talbot and the other Welsh plants in the long run is to return the ownership of the Welsh steel industry to Welsh hands—to nationalise as a first step, and then to recapitalise with the kind of green bond advocated recently by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in their report to you, and then finally to mutualise and create a Welsh steel co-operative? Dŵr Cymru has been a success despite the scepticism at the outset, so why not Dur Cymru?

The Basque co-operative, Mondragon, which the Welsh Government is already working with, as you confirmed last week, has previously indicated its willingness to provide advice and support in establishing an employee-owned business at Port Talbot. Why not take them up on that offer? A worker-owned integrated steel plant is by no means unprecedented internationally.

At the height of the last crisis, which was only four years ago, the Welsh Government funded the Excalibur management buy-out at Port Talbot to the tune of £0.75 million. Is the Welsh Government prepared to put similar resources and energy, now, behind the idea of a Welsh-owned steel co-operative?

What we will do, Llywydd, as I've said, is put our energy and our commitment to the steel industry in Wales at the service of the company and the UK Government in the discussions that they need to have. That is the way forward for this industry at this point. Now, there are many things that Adam Price said to which I am, myself, attracted. I had the privilege of spending a week in Mondragon, while a Member of this Senedd, and saw the fantastic work that has been achieved there. I think I said last week, Llywydd, that I'd received a letter from the President of the Basque Country that day, inviting Welsh Ministers to further discussions with the Basque Government about mutual ways in which we can learn from one another and help one another. But on the narrow point of what needs to happen next in relation to the very important steel industry and its impact on communities here in Wales, the efforts of the Welsh Government are not going to be distracted into alternatives at this point. Our efforts are concentrated on discussions with the company, persuading the UK Government, getting them properly around the table, finding a way forward that protects those communities and those jobs.