Questions now from the party leaders. The leader of the Welsh Conservatives, Andrew R.T. Davies. 

Thank you, Presiding Officer, and, with your permission, as it's the last Senedd First Minister's questions of this session, I'd like to just reflect for a moment on the tragedy that families have gone through over the COVID crisis that we've just seen behind us over the last 12 months. The loss of a loved one is incalculable, and the grief that families must be feeling across the whole of Wales is sombrely reflected today by all Members of the Senedd, but also in all communities the length and breadth of Wales. We've also seen huge acts of kindness that have been so inspirational, both community spirited kindness and compassion combined, which have carried many people through this crisis.

I'd also like to put on record my thanks, as leader of the Welsh Conservative group, to the staff of the Commission who, through this five-year session, have seen us through question times and debates, and also to reflect on the Members who aren't with us today, who gathered with us in May 2016 to begin this session, who tragically have lost their lives over the last five years. 

First Minister, with the third wave ripping through Europe at the moment, why is it easier to fly from Cardiff to Alicante than it is to drive to Aberystwyth?  

Llywydd, apologies to the leader of the opposition, as I just missed the—. The line just dipped in the very last part of his question to me. If he'd just be happy to repeat that very last line. 

Yes, First Minister. Sorry about that. Why is it easier to fly from Cardiff to Alicante than it is to drive to Aberystwyth at the moment in Wales? 

I beg your pardon. Thank you for that. Llywydd, could I also just echo the first points that Mr Davies made? We'll have a chance later this afternoon, in a statement that I will give, to reflect on the extraordinary last 12 months and those who have lost loved ones. It's a very important day for us to do that.

I wanted, as well, to take the opportunity, as the leader of the opposition did, just to reflect on the cruelty of the last five years as far as Senedd Members are concerned. We've never experienced a term like it, when we've experienced the loss of Members of the Senedd from all parts of the Chamber—talented, committed people. Their loss has been very profoundly felt across the Chamber. In the last five years, we also lost my own great friend, mentor and predecessor in this post, Rhodri Morgan. Going in, as we are, to an election, I find it odd every day to think of us having an election here in a devolved Wales without the person who was probably personally the most significant figure in establishing devolution as we have it today. 

As far as the travel issue is concerned, Llywydd, international travel to and from Wales is bound by the same set of rules in Wales as it is across our border and, indeed, in Scotland. Some air travel is permitted in very narrow circumstances, where the four Governments have agreed together that it is necessary for work purposes, education purposes, or where people are returning home elsewhere in the world. At the moment, the 'stay local' arrangements remain necessary in Wales because of the state of the public health emergency. I remain optimistic that, given the current figures that we continue to see in Wales and with the improvements that we are seeing, by the end of the next week, we may be able to move from 'stay local' to people being able to travel more widely across Wales.

First Minister, it cannot be right, with the current third wave going through Europe, as we're seeing, tragically, that you can fly from Cardiff more easily than you can travel, as I said, to Aberystwyth. I, this morning, for example, was able to purchase a ticket for Thursday to fly out of Cardiff Airport, where I do not believe a quarantine hotel exists or in-airport testing exists. If you're allowing, out of your own airport, people to fly to parts of Europe that potentially are hosting the third wave of the virus, why are there no testing facilities at Cardiff Airport and why, indeed, are there no quarantine facilities? 

There are no quarantine facilities, Llywydd, because no flights to Cardiff Airport go to red-list countries. Only people travelling into the United Kingdom from the 30-odd countries on the red list are required to quarantine, and none of them are allowed to enter the United Kingdom via Wales. So, there is no case for quarantine facilities at Cardiff Airport because nobody anywhere in the United Kingdom would be required to quarantine under the circumstances that the Member refers to.

I am very anxious, as is the chief medical officer, as is Public Health Wales in the statements that were published last week, at the prospects of international travel being allowed from 17 May. I share the Member's concerns about the third wave on the continent of Europe. I share his concerns about people being able to return to the United Kingdom from places where the virus is in renewed circulation, particularly as there are new variants that are appearing in different parts of the world. I raised this matter with the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in our regular call on Wednesday of last week. I've heard other UK Ministers over the weekend taking a slightly more precautionary approach to this than was originally envisaged in the Prime Minister's road map for England; I do hope that that will turn out to be true for some of the reasons that the leader of the opposition has identified.

I noticed you didn't confirm whether there was testing at the airport. As of this morning, 45 people have currently booked to fly to Cardiff from Alicante on Thursday, and 32 people to fly the other way. Clearly, the informed decision making that will be going into the road map from Westminster is predicated on the report that will be made available on international travel on 12 April. So, it is remarkable that you, as the First Minister, keep non-essential shopping on the high street shut, but you're happy to see international travel coming to Cardiff Airport—an airport you control. Can you understand why people feel very frustrated at this prospect? They see one rule for one sector of the economy and another rule for another sector of the economy, when on your matrix and your COVID recovery plan it would be safe to open non-essential retail. But as it is, you're prepared to allow people to come into Cardiff Airport when no testing facilities exist, First Minister.

I think people are more sensible than the Member gives them credit for. They will understand that the rules that govern international travel out of Wales or into Wales are identical to those everywhere in the rest of the United Kingdom. If the Member is critical of them, he can only be equally critical of the position taken by his own Government.

I looked before we started questions this afternoon, Llywydd, at the list of flights that will be coming into Heathrow this afternoon—flights from Cairo, flights from many parts of the world where the risks are a good deal greater than any flight coming into Cardiff. If a flight comes into Cardiff, then people who arrive here will be subject to all the rules that are there. That includes a testing regime, it includes people being required to stay at home in their own homes for a period after they arrive back, being tested at the start, being tested at the eight-day point—all of that is in place here in Wales. Those are the same rules that happen elsewhere.

I've lost count of the number of times, Llywydd, that the Member has urged on me that we should follow a four-nation approach to these matters in the United Kingdom, and yet when I follow a four-nation approach identically where international travel is concerned, he seems to suggest that we should be doing something different here in Wales. We're doing it on a four-nation basis. I'm very glad we're doing it that way. Everything we are doing here in Wales is the same as in England, Scotland or Northern Ireland, other than the point that the Member hadn't grasped, which is that no red-list flights are allowed to come into Wales. They are only allowed to land in Scotland and in England.

The leader of Plaid Cymru, Adam Price.

Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, every administration should look back on its time in office and ask the question, 'What should we have done better?' When you ask yourself that question, what answer do you give?

I'm sure there are many answers, because I think the Member is right that anybody sensible would want to reflect on the experience of the last five years. I wish very much that we had persuaded the UK Government to strike a different deal with the European Union as we left it. People in Wales voted to leave the European Union. The Welsh Government was clear from the beginning that we accepted the fact of that, but we wanted to focus on the form of it. We failed to persuade the UK Government of our case, which would have resulted in a far closer economic relationship with our closest and most important market. Right up to the very end, we were unable to persuade the UK Government, in striking its deal with the European Union, to look after the interests of our young people by securing our continued participation in the Erasmus+ programme, a deficit that I'm very proud to say this Welsh Government made good over this weekend, so that young people in Wales will go on having opportunities to work, study and to volunteer abroad, as will young people from the rest of the world be welcome here in Wales.

I must admit, First Minister, that Labour's campaign launch recently caused a bit of a double take. When I asked you four weeks ago today to commit to giving the real living wage to our care workers, your response then was to pour scorn on what you deemed to be unaffordable pledges. Fast forward a month, and the real living wage for carers now is a headline policy for you going into the election. I'm personally glad we've persuaded you, I'm just sorry that, like with so many other policies—the north Wales medical school, the devolution of justice, and the youth job guarantee—it took so long. But in that spirit of belated reconsideration and at your last possible opportunity in the Senedd before the election, will you now commit to extending free school meals eligibility? You dropped your child poverty target, which we think is a matter of great regret, but will you take this opportunity to promise a hot meal for every child whose family is in receipt of universal credit?

Llywydd, the fundamental difference between my party's manifesto and his is that ours is credible and his is incredible. When I said to him four weeks ago that it was vitally important that any promises that any party makes to the people of Wales can be afforded and delivered, I meant what I said. And the work that my party has put into our pledges guarantees that every one of them can be delivered and can be delivered in a way that is affordable. It does nobody any good, Llywydd, just to pour out promises, one after another, without any possibility that those promises can actually be delivered in reality, because they all add up. His promises, just in a very conservative assessment of them, amount to well over £2 billion-worth of revenue and £6 billion-worth of capital that he hasn't got. I will not go into an election promising people things that I know are simply not possible.

On free school meals, this Government has a very proud record indeed. The first Government in the United Kingdom to guarantee free school meals during school holidays during the pandemic. The first Government in the United Kingdom to guarantee that that will continue through the whole of the next academic year. The first Government in the United Kingdom to make sure that the weekly sum available for free school meals during the pandemic is at a level that avoids the sort of scandalous things that we saw in England. Our record is proud, our record is deliverable and the promises we make will be affordable, credible and deliverable as well.

I note you said there, First Minister, that you were making a 'conservative assessment' of Plaid Cymru's policies and I think you used your words very advisedly, because I expect you next to be quoting Theresa May and the magic money tree. That's not an election campaign that went very well for her in the end. Our policies will be costed, independently verified by Professor Brian Morgan and Professor Gerry Holtham, an economist that you know very well and you've used as an adviser to the Welsh Government yourself.

I don't expect my powers of persuasion to extend to a u-turn by you any time soon on the question of independence, First Minister, but can I ask you a couple of genuine questions in this final First Minister's questions? In your vision of home rule, what powers would you leave at Westminster, given they would be for most of the time still in Tory hands? And, finally—and to us this is the central question—if the Conservatives, as currently predicted, win the next Westminster election, probably the one after that, and so on, is there some point at which even you would accept, First Minister, that independence becomes for Wales the more progressive option?

Well, Llywydd, my advice to the Member is to cheer up. My goodness, he's written off the next election, he's written the one after that off as well. Really, my party will be there, fighting to make sure that the results are different. We're not defeatist in the desperate way he has been there, this afternoon.

There are many things we could debate as to which matters would be left at a UK level. The key thing for my party is that all those things would be agreed, that we are a voluntary association of four nations. There we are, I have quoted Mrs May for him this afternoon, because that's how she described the United Kingdom in her Edinburgh lecture in the weeks before she ceased to be Prime Minister. A voluntary association of four nations means that we agree the things that we choose to operate at a UK level. It's in our hands, not in the hands of Westminster to determine it.

The truth is, Llywydd, that the choice at the election is this: the Welsh Conservative Party doesn't believe in Wales, his party doesn't believe in the United Kingdom, my party believes in both.