The following amendments have been selected: amendment 1 in the name of Rebecca Evans, and amendments 2 and 3 in the name of Siân Gwenllian.

The next item on the agenda this afternoon is the Welsh Conservative debate on the future of Wales, and I call on Andrew R.T. Davies to move the motion.

Motion NDM7683 Mark Isherwood

To propose that the Senedd:

1. Regrets that successive Labour-led Welsh Governments have failed to improve the life chances of the people of Wales.

2. Recognises the admission of the Deputy Minister for Economy and Transport that 'We don’t know what we’re doing on the economy'.

3. Notes that the Minister for Health and Social Services said that it would be 'foolish' to have a plan for backlogs before the pandemic is over.

4. Further notes that the former First Minister also admitted that Labour had taken 'its eye off the ball' on education.

5. Acknowledges that to rebuild Wales, we need a change of direction and a new government on the 6 May 2021, that will deliver a recovery plan for Wales, which includes:

a) creating 65,000 new jobs, with at least 15,000 green jobs;

b) tackling the backlog of waiting times in Wales;

c) ending the underfunding of our young people;

d) building the infrastructure Wales needs including the M4 relief road plus upgrades to the A40 and A55;

e) supporting people with the cost of living by freezing council tax for two years;

f) putting Wales onto the path to net zero by 2050.

Motion moved.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and before I start and formally move the motion, can I put on record my thanks to you as Deputy Presiding Officer, this being the last debate, for the service that you've given to the Assembly, in your capacity as the Member for Vale of Clwyd, but also in your role as Chair of various committees and now as Deputy Presiding Officer over the last couple of years? It has always been a pleasure to work with you, and hopefully make progress in areas where we might share mutual concerns. But I appreciate the political divide sometimes has been difficult to bridge, but it's always been done with good humour, and I wish you well for the future, Deputy Presiding Officer.

Thank you.

I formally move the motion in the name of Mark Isherwood that's on the order paper today. I'll deal with the amendments, if I may, to start. We clearly will not be accepting amendment 1, which, true to form with the good old Government intention, is a 'delete all and replace with self-congratulations of the Government and its time in office', which, frankly, if you look at the way things look at the moment in the economy, in the health service and other areas of the Government programme, which clearly hasn't delivered a clean air Act, an M4 relief road, delivered NVZs, which is just a cut-and-paste exercise over 40 years, after the Minister said on no fewer than 12 occasions that the Government would not introduce such devastating regulations for the rural economy, on the floor of the Senedd while the COVID crisis was still in full flow, but yet seems hell-bent on introducing them this April, no autism Bill, and, as we heard in the health questions this afternoon, no cancer plan or renewal of a cancer plan, how on earth this Government can give itself self-congratulations I genuinely do not know, and I think the people of Wales will have a view on that as we go into the election campaign, and, come 6 May, hopefully will cast their vote accordingly.

On amendments 2 and 3 from Siân Gwenllian, clearly we will not be accepting those amendments that merely seek to cause more constitutional chaos by placing an independence referendum at the heart of any nationalist government's programme for government over the next five years. Is that really what the country needs coming out of a COVID pandemic, when really what the country requires is economic stability, constitutional continuity and investment in our public services, so that we can get on top of all the waiting times that exist within the health service, where one in five people are on a waiting list here in Wales? That, clearly, will not be tackled by the constitutional chaos that Plaid are proposing via their amendments and, indeed, via their commitments in the first five years of their government plan, should they ever see the light of day.

We want to highlight to the people of Wales what the real opportunities are after 22 years of Labour failure here in Wales. If you take take-home pay, for example, in Wales it's £55 less than for a Scottish worker, when, in 1999, it started at exactly the same rate at the beginning of devolution, and today a Scottish worker takes home £55 a week more than a Welsh worker, and an English worker will be taking home £52 a week more. How can the Government give themselves any plaudit for economic success when you have such a gap between the pay levels that have opened up across the era of devolution?

And, as I've said, when it comes to health and the economy in particular, looking at the comments of the Deputy Minister for the economy saying that the Government have taken their eye off the ball and don't know what they're doing, that, clearly, is borne out by the stats that show what's going on here in the wider economy across Wales. And with the health service in a state that it needs a renewal plan and a road map out to make sure that we get those waiting times down—one in five people on a waiting list, no cancer delivery plan put in place, just a statement at the beginning of the week—the health Minister clearly has lost his grip and lost his direction when it comes to reinvigorating the health service and rewarding our dedicated health staff who've provided those bridges of compassion to people the length and breadth of Wales, and worked tirelessly to make sure that, when people need their help, it's there for them. We need a change come 6 May, and that change will be offered by the Welsh Conservatives.

And for the Government in their amendment to give themselves a pat on the back when they're talking about education and lifting standards on the PISA league tables, when it's their party that have driven those standards down over the first 22 years of Government here in Wales, and to actually say that you're making a success of education really does take the biscuit, to say the least, when we need more teachers in the classroom and we need investment in our education so that we can get the vocational and academic courses that power our economy into the twenty-first century. And with 65,000 new jobs promoted by the Conservatives, 15,000 of which will be green jobs, the investment in the health service for 1,200 doctors and 3,000 nurses, as well as 5,000 teachers, building infrastructure in all parts of Wales, and making sure, when we make a manifesto commitment to deliver the M4 relief road, invest in upgrades to the A40 and A55, the people of Wales will know that we'll deliver on that, as well as helping with support for the cost of living crisis that's going on at the moment by freezing council tax. It cannot be right—it cannot be right—that council tax has gone up 200 per cent and that, as we speak, on doormats the length and breadth of Wales, people are having rate increases of 4, 5, 6 per cent across Wales. That really isn't right when the consumer prices index is at 0.4 of 1 per cent—today announced—and that households are having to face that burden of extra budget pressures on hard-pressed funds. And that's why I'm so pleased to say that an incoming future Conservative Government would freeze council tax for the next two years, and make sure that we step up to the plate when it comes to the environmental credentials—that we're very proud to work with the UK Government to deliver net zero by 2050.

These are all important commitments that are important to the people of Wales, and, this being the last debate of this fifth Assembly term, I believe, as we go on the campaign trail and into that election campaign, people will see the inertia that has gripped the Welsh Parliament by having Labour in control for 22 years, propped up by their helpers Plaid Cymru and the Lib Dems, and vote for change on 6 May. And I hope the Assembly will vote tonight for the motion that's before them and discount the amendments that have been placed in the Government's name and the nationalists' name. And that's why I move the motion in the name of Mark Isherwood standing on the Welsh Conservative order paper.

Thank you. I have selected the three amendments to the motion, and I call on the Minister for Housing and Local Government to formally move amendment 1, tabled in the name of Rebecca Evans.

Amendment 1—Rebecca Evans

Delete all and replace with:

To propose that the Senedd:

1. Recognises that in the face of unprecedented challenges of austerity, Brexit, climate change and COVID-19, the Welsh Government has:

a) Established the Development Bank of Wales, secured more than 100,000 all-age apprenticeships and provided unrivalled business rates relief including over £580m in permanent relief for small businesses;

b) Introduced the New Treatment Fund, making newly approved treatments available in the NHS in an average of 13 days;

c) Improved PISA results in all three domains and developed a radical new curriculum for our schools;

d) Declared a climate change emergency and set Wales’s first legally binding target to achieve net zero emissions;

e) Built 20,000 new homes and strengthened the rights of renters.

2. Notes the full achievements are set out in the Welsh Government’s Annual Report.

Amendment 1 moved.

Formally.

Thank you. I call on Delyth Jewell to move amendments 2 and 3, tabled in the name of Siân Gwenllian. Delyth.

Amendment 2—Siân Gwenllian

Add as new points at end of motion:

Believes that Wales will only fully recover by electing a new government that will let the people of Wales, not Westminster, decide on our future.

Believes that Wales needs a change of direction through allowing the people of Wales to have their say on whether Wales should become an independent country by holding an independence referendum during the next Senedd term.

Amendment 3—Siân Gwenllian

Add as new point at end of motion:

Believes that, in order to rebuild Wales, the next Senedd should have powers over matters currently reserved to Westminster, including policing and justice, rail, welfare, broadcasting, energy projects, and the Crown Estate.

Amendments 2 and 3 moved.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and thank you for everything that you've done over the years and for your friendship.

I move our group amendments. It's fitting that we should close this Senedd with a debate that looks towards our future. That future is full of possibility if we choose to believe in ourselves as a nation, to stop putting our faith in the recalcitrant wreckers of Westminster and, instead, empower our people. I must applaud the audacity of the Conservative group for tabling this motion, the party that cut billions from the Welsh Government budget through austerity, stole powers from Wales without mandate and broke promises on funding the Swansea barrage and electrifying the south Wales main line. Theirs is a party that wishes to contain and constrain our nation, a party of the Jacob Rees-Moggs who sniggeringly told MPs last week that Welsh is a foreign language, the casual contempt of Westminster for all that is not English. It is only when Wales will elect a Government that will enable the people to determine their own future, away from Westminster, that she will reach her full potential. A country the size of Wales that can build a prosperous economy, boast of a government and society that reflect the values and that will nurture our culture and language, while welcoming everyone who wants to make Wales their home.

The Westminster system may currently constrain us, but hope finds a way, because there is a defiance in the hearts of all who live in Wales, a determination to battle on. It is a defiance that has deep roots. We are, after all, an ancient, vibrant nation that has had to overcome great tribulations. It was the bard David Jones who pointed out that in the terrible winter of 1282, Bleddyn Fardd, in his 'Marwnad Llywelyn ap Gruffydd', still had the superb audacity to refer to a totally stricken Wales as 'Cymru fawr'—Cymru fawr when all was broken and lost. So, we have come from that cruel lance thrust on the banks of the Irfon on that fateful wintery night to this hopeful spring of 2021, surveying much that is broken in our society, how much we must rebuild.

A great Wales that still stands. A great Wales that is facing the future with a greater status, broader horizons, a perseverance that is deeper than the efforts of any other party to support it. What will define us lies before us, not behind us.

And I will conclude, Deputy Llywydd, with the words of the immortal John Davies at the end of his book Hanes Cymru when he discusses the fact that many historians have asked when Wales came to be:

'This book was written in the faith and confidence that the nation in its fullness is yet to be'.

I myself have known you since I was in the then Welsh Assembly back in 2003. You've been here a long time. You've done a great deal, and I'm sure you'll be missed by many.

Wales is a country of enormous potential, Deputy Presiding Officer. Unfortunately, over the last 22 years, Wales has not only failed to achieve that potential, but on so many measures, has fallen backwards. Poorer, our economy is generating less wealth for its people, and our high street vacancy rates have gone up. School funding has failed to keep pace with funding in England; as a result, school standards have declined. In international comparisons, Wales is now the worst performing UK nation, ranked along former Soviet bloc countries.

We now have the only NHS in the UK that has ever had its budget cut. We're spending almost £1 million less on the NHS every year because of that short-sighted decision. NHS waiting lists doubled in the year before the pandemic, and have grown eightfold during it.

And who is to blame for these failings? Not Labour, surely, not the Labour Party who have been in Government in Wales for the last two decades, surely not. When confronted with decades of failures and missed opportunities, Labour's only response is ever to attack the UK Government, like children shifting blame. Vaughan Gething earlier today was quick to abdicate any responsibility for failing to address inequalities in Wales that have been highlighted by this pandemic to an appalled nation who now realise, thanks to Mark Drakeford's dire need to do things differently for the sake of it, who they can blame for the absolute failure of successive Labour Governments to address key issues and equalities in our poorest communities across my area of South Wales East and Wales, communities that they claim to be the champion of.

Wales is the poorest part of the UK and has the highest rate of poverty. Something to be proud of, Welsh Government? I think not. Could you really have done something to help with this over the last two decades? I think so. No longer can you hide, Labour Welsh Government, due to people in our country now understanding more about who controls what, and it will be interesting to see and very telling to see, after this election, if they think you've done a good job. The Welsh economy was the weakest in the UK before the pandemic hit as a result of 20 years of Labour failure. Your own Labour Deputy Minister for Economy and Transport, Lee Waters, admitted the Welsh Labour Government has no idea what they're doing on the economy. Your Labour record of wasting money—. Whether it be on the M4 relief road feasibility studies and preparations, Circuit of Wales, Pinewood, many others—you've wasted our money. Our country is crying out for change. After decades of stagnation, missed opportunities, and lack of vision from Labour, our country needs the people of this country to get behind the Welsh Conservatives to form a Government in May. It's the only way we can ensure that the economy and businesses get back on their knees and we help them thrive once again. It's the only way that Wales will fulfil its true potential, by building the M4 relief road that will ensure that we attract the investment in Wales that we've been crying out for for decades. This has to be done alongside the transport commissioner's recommendations in order to truly maximise the economic potential of Wales. Not only that, we'll ensure we leave a Wales for future generations that's fit for purpose, that our young people can be proud of.

Our NHS have been utter superheroes over the last year in particular, and we will be forever indebted to them. We need to help them recuperate, services and staff, in this recovery period we're moving into, and invest in the needed services for the recovery of our nation, invest in services and service delivery inequalities that have been highlighted by this pandemic. We, the Welsh Conservatives, will invest in our country and its people, outlined by Andrew R.T. Davies earlier. I'm proud of my party's vision of how to make this country thrive again, how to help it recover, and to ensure that everyone has the equality of opportunity to help them make the very best of their lives for themselves and for their family.

Can I also pay tribute to the work that you've done long before I came here to this Senedd? You'll be missed very much indeed, and your presence and your legacy is very, very strong indeed, so thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer.

I'm delighted to speak in this debate, the last substantive debate before we close this session, and in doing so, it's worth looking back, because for some people, it's a glass half empty; for some people, there's no glass to hold anything at all. So, I think it's worth looking at some track record issues here, and the track record of Labour in Government here over the last five years in the face of coming off a decade and more of austerity, and it can't be dismissed, because Wales was consistently undersold by the UK Government over that decade and left with a begging bowl out. In the face as well of the European transition, where so much effort, so much resource was put into that, rather than focusing on the future of Wales, and also facing up to those ever-present challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss, and also, of course, the unprecedented challenge for any Government whatsoever of the tragedy of COVID-19.

But even despite that, during this period, we've delivered on all—all—of our Welsh Government, Welsh Labour pledges. We delivered that unprecedented ambitious pledge on the childcare offer for free early education and childcare, and speech and language therapy and so on for children aged three and four, to all families, working families, for 48 weeks of the year, and we delivered it to 14,500 children and their families in January 2020. We delivered the tax cuts for all small businesses in Wales, with the small business rates relief scheme in April, 2018; over half of all businesses in Wales now pay no rates at all, and many of them I speak to in my own constituency. We delivered those 100,000 quality apprenticeships for all ages, and within those apprenticeships—we met the target, by the way, in 2020—nearly 60 per cent of those apprenticeships were undertaken by people aged 25 and over as well, giving them a second chance there in their careers and in their jobs and in life, and we delivered the new treatment fund for life-threatening illnesses. Before the new treatment fund, it used to take 90 days to get newly approved medicines and treatments available on the NHS. It now takes just 13 days—13 days.

And of course, we doubled the capital limit on those going into residential care: we doubled it, in fact, two years earlier than planned. It's the most generous scheme in the UK, so people can now keep, when they go into residential care, up to £50,000 of their hard-earned earnings, and I know that matters greatly to those people who live in my constituency. And of course, it's not just the bricks and mortar that we've invested in in school standards, we delivered on our pledge to put £100 million into improving school standards, not just bricks and mortar, but reducing infant class sizes, and putting in place the National Academy for Educational Leadership, which some of my former headteachers here locally are actually now at the head of, and improving Welsh language teaching and learning. But it's not just that, Deputy Presiding Officer. Despite the challenges of coming in after austerity, despite the challenges of Brexit, despite all those other challenges we've had, we've supported more than 36,000 children in disadvantaged areas every year through our Flying Start programme. Yes, that's the Flying Start programme that they cut and hacked at within England. We kept it going and we've kept investment going. We've provided childcare for—

The Member does need to wind up, please.

Indeed I will. We've provided childcare for 9,600 children through the coronavirus childcare assistance scheme.

Deputy Presiding Officer, I could go on. One of the things people should judge this or any Government on, and any party on, is track record, and one thing we can guarantee is we not only delivered our pledges, but we went further, and the future of Wales will be in good hands if we re-elect a Welsh Labour Government. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

I wish to start my contribution to the debate by acknowledging that, during this fifth Senedd, there have been some positive interventions with regard to the economy and to transport infrastructure, as well as moves to encourage entrepreneurial activity, but it has to be said, the previous 15 years of Labour rule, at one time ably abetted by Plaid Cymru, have been nothing short of disastrous for Wales and the Welsh economy.

Far too much time and money has been spent on social engineering rather than constructive growth for the economy. By social engineering I mean the proliferation of the third sector in Wales, a clear strategy of creating jobs for the boys where almost all executive posts are filled by Labour apparatchiks. In addition, we witnessed the near-universal failure of the Communities First initiative, which created no real jobs, but saw a proliferation of administration posts. Merthyr Tydfil is a prime example of this failure, where out of the £1.5 million allotted to its Communities First organisation, £1.25 million was spent on administrative salaries. The total spend of this social experiment has cost the Welsh taxpayer £410 million between 2001 and 2016, when the plug was finally pulled.

We were promised reform of local government, with 22 local authorities reduced to eight. It could be said that this never came about because the Labour Party is in hock to the trade unions, who oppose such reorganisation. Education in Wales has an appalling record over the last 20 years—countless schools in special measures and, as in Torfaen, even the local education authority was placed in special measures. We currently have three of the four secondary schools in special measures. The abject failure of the Labour Government to address educational issues has led to a dramatic fall in qualifications for the vast majority of school pupils, to the extent that we can now say we have a lost generation of children. Vocational qualifications were almost totally ignored during this period, though, to be fair, it can be said that it is now, very belatedly, being addressed.

The Labour Government bemoans the fact that we have lost so-called European money—in reality, British money coming back to us after the EU took roughly half of it. The truth is, the reason we qualified for the money was that we remain one of the poorest regions of the EU, with 25 per cent of our population living in officially recognised poverty, the legacy of 20 years of Labour rule in Wales.

Labour has been losing its core vote of the working class population for the last 20 years. When will it change its policies to those espoused by these people? It can be said that it is this institution's disconnect from the people of Wales, evidenced by its refusal to accept the Brexit vote, where working-class people voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU, that is causing the drift away from the Labour Party. Wales and its hard-working people deserve better. Perhaps the administration will listen to the people. We need reform—the Reform Party will deliver that reform.

Can I end, Dirprwy Lywydd, by congratulating you on your fantastic contribution? You are an icon of this institution. I wish you sincerely well wherever and whatever you wish to do in your retirement.

Thank you very much. Janet Finch-Saunders.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. It is a sad fact that successive Labour-led Welsh Governments have failed to improve the life chances of the people of Wales. For the past two decades, Welsh Labour have failed to keep a watchful eye on their own spending habits. Hundreds of millions of pounds have been wasted on vanity projects, failed business ventures and poorly managed quangos. The evidence can only point towards Lee Waters and his conclusion that, for 20 years, Welsh Labour haven't really known what they are doing on the economy.

Welsh Labour have also presided over a cacophony of crisis in the Welsh NHS: cancer waiting times not being met for 10 years; the 95 per cent target for patients spending less than four hours in A&E has never been met; and the 95 per cent target for patients waiting fewer than 26 weeks for treatment has not been met for 10 years. Despite receiving nearly £83 million from Welsh Government on intervention and improvement support between 2015 and 2019, the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board experienced the highest-reported patient safety incidents out of the seven Welsh health boards, and waiting lists continue to spiral out of control. The Welsh NHS has done a magnificent job treating our residents even before the pandemic, but it is time that they had leadership that empowered their efforts.

Welsh Labour have failed our farmers. The all-Wales nitrate vulnerable zone is now putting rural livelihoods at risk, causing serious mental health concerns. The agriculture White Paper fails to champion food production, and you are sitting on a tuberculosis strategy that saw the slaughter of 9,762 animals in the year to December 2020. In fact, the environment deserves better than your complete failure to deliver on Mark Drakeford's leadership promise to create a clean air Act, and your inability to introduce deposit-return schemes across Wales. 

As the recent Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee report stated, 

'rhetoric must now be met with bold and decisive action.'

That action will just not come from Welsh Labour nor, indeed, your pals in Plaid Cymru. And to them I say that being part of the union is in the best interests of our health service and, indeed, the best interests of Wales. Around 13,500 Welsh residents are registered with a GP practice in England. Being part of the union is in the best interests of our economy. Around 70,000 people travel out of Wales to work. Being part of the union is in the best interests of our taxpayers. Whilst Welsh Conservatives would freeze council tax, your devastating nationalist nonsense would result in a higher per-person tax of approximately £3,700.

In May, this nation will be at a crossroads and the people of Wales can choose to vote in favour of change. Let's for once now end the fallacy that we need a change of direction through holding an independence referendum. We need a change, yes, but that's a change in direction by welcoming new leadership. With our plan of action and recovery, it is now only the Welsh Conservatives who can deliver a much brighter tomorrow for Wales. Diolch. Thank you.

Thank you. Can I now call on the Minister for Housing and Local Government, Julie James? 

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and can I add my voice to those who are saying how grateful they are to you for your firm and determined leadership in your position as Deputy Presiding Officer? I have been very grateful, during your term of office, for your guidance and support, and, in fact, ever since I joined the Assembly, back in 2011, I've been grateful for your friendship, comradeship, advice, good guidance and constant presence, good humour, laughter and fun. I'll really miss you, Ann, as will all the rest of us, and I wish you all the very best for the future.

I'd also like to thank Members for the opportunity to respond to this debate. I think it was pretty brave of the Conservatives to table a motion, which, as ever, shows just how much out of touch they are with the people of Wales, and gives us the opportunity to showcase all of the many ways in which we have, of course, time and time again, stood up for the people of Wales in the face of the Tory threat.

Our amendment sets out just a handful of our achievements in Government, and I'll happily list many more in a moment, but I thought I'd begin with sharing with you the original amendment that I was considering, and it would have said this: 'delete all'—of course, because the proposition is preposterous—'and replace with: to propose that our Senedd regrets that, despite 20 years of devolution, the Welsh Conservatives have vowed not to spend a single penny on things that aren't strictly devolved, things like our 500 PCSOs that we fund; regrets that the Conservatives have failed to match our UK-leading business support packages; regrets that the UK Conservatives have blown £37 billion on test and trace contracts for their friends, £37 billion that a former Treasury Permanent Secretary described as the most inept public spending programme of all time; regrets that the Tories abolished EMA and Erasmus, whereas this Government has stepped in to protect the demonstrable benefits that come with both schemes; regrets, indeed, the disdain that the Welsh and UK Conservatives have for devolution.' This is particularly evident right now, in recent reports that the Conservatives regret 'allowing the Welsh Government to run your own NHS and response to COVID-19'—and I quote.

Well, Deputy Presiding Officer, we on these benches do not share those views. Indeed, because of this Government and the dedication of remarkable public servants across Wales, we have shown how it should be done. We have an outstanding test and trace programme, run by our own local authorities, not outsourced to the highest bidder. We have one of the best vaccine programmes in the world, with over 50 per cent of the adult population having had their first dose. We have the UK's most generous business support package, showing that Labour is the party of innovation and entrepreneurship. We have provided over £1.5 billion-worth of extra money to our NHS, and secured over 580 million items of PPE, some of which we shared with England. We have bolstered our free school meals programme and delivered over 2.1 million food boxes to those on the shielding lists. We have expanded our discretionary assistance fund by over £13 million to help the worst affected by the pandemic. We have provided £20 million-worth of emergency funding to local authorities and housed over 7,000 people during the course of the pandemic, and, unlike England, we have never moved away from our 'everyone in' policy during this pandemic, and we are very proud of that. We have provided a £500 'thank you' payment to our NHS staff and care staff, which the Conservative Government has seen fit to tax. We have set up an £18 million freelancer fund, which simply does not exist in England, and secured over £90 million-worth of support to our key cultural sectors, at a time when the Tories were telling artists to retrain as IT specialists.

The Tories in Wales have flip-flopped over measures they do and don't support. Beholden to an indecisive UK Government, they have made the wrong call time and time again. It's a strange reality when we have a Conservative Party that wants to defund the police and cut every single one of our 500 PCSOs, that doesn't show the slightest remorse for blowing £37 billion instead of funding public services, and has proven weak on business, indifferent to freelancers, and callous on free school meals. This is not our record in Wales.

Our amendment is just a glimpse of how we have, time and time again, fought for the people of Wales, how we have bolstered our NHS, secured jobs, provided 100,000 apprenticeships, built schools, reformed our curriculum, fought against climate change, built 20,000 homes, created a vision for tourism and culture, strengthened our local authorities, invested in our town centres, expanded childcare, helped people and businesses pay less tax and rates, prioritised workers' rights and the social partnership, increased funding for mental health. We have published an unprecedented race equality action plan. We were the first nation to provide PrEP across the UK. We introduced a gender recognition service. We have committed to a taskforce to tackle inequality faced by disabled people. We have increased our funding to tackle violence and domestic abuse. We have invested in active travel, in placemaking, and in finding housing solutions to challenges such as fuel poverty, changing demographics and reducing carbon emissions. Our coastal communities and towns remain a priority for this Government, and that's why, despite the UK Tory Government's decision to stop this important funding, we have committed to providing £6 million to our coastal towns.

Deputy Presiding Officer, the list goes on and on, and so does our absolute determination that, together, we will keep Wales moving forward. Llywydd, on this side of the house, we are rightly proud of the record of this Government. Despite the challenges of COVID and of Brexit, we have kept our eyes on the future of this country, and on the hopes we all share. Diolch.

Thank you. No Members have indicated they wish to make an intervention; therefore, I'll call on Darren Millar to reply to the debate.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and can I also start with a tribute to you? As a neighbouring constituency Member of the Senedd, I've seen first-hand just how hard you work for your constituents, and it will be a great loss to them when you step down. You're tenacious; you're a great political campaigner. In fact, you and I have gotten into trouble with our own parties for campaigning sometimes for issues on the same side of the argument, but it's been a pleasure to work with you, and you've been a superb travelling companion as well on many a journey up and down on the train between north and south Wales.

Can I turn to the subject of this debate, the Labour Party's failures over the past 20 years? I thought the Minister tried to do a decent job of it, but it's very difficult to do a decent job of it when you've got such an atrocious record in Government. For the past 20 years, the Labour Party and their little helpers in Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats have absolutely ruined large parts of Wales's public services and our economy. We have seen, of course, those failures, which are very evident still, in our national health service, in spite of the tremendous work that they've done in responding to the pandemic. We have a national health service that was in crisis prior to March of last year. A recruitment crisis still exists in our national health service—something that you guys have been responsible for for over 20 years. We know that waiting times are absolutely out of control; we know that target times for people getting in and out of our emergency departments have never been met; and, of course, I want to remind you and those people watching this debate that, yet again, the Welsh Labour Government is the only Government ever in the history of the United Kingdom that's cut an NHS budget—something that I don't think is a very proud record to be standing on. And then, of course, there's Betsi, in my own backyard, languishing in special measures for the longest time of any NHS organisation in history and still with problems that are yet to be resolved.

If you look at education, people have already made reference to the fact that Wales has the worst performing education system in the whole of the United Kingdom, as far as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Programme for International Student Assessment tests are concerned. And it's not only the worst in the United Kingdom, it's the only nation in the United Kingdom that is in the bottom half of the OECD league tables—that's not a record to be proud of. And it's not surprising, really, given the funding gap per pupil between England and Wales that your Government has presided over. 

And then, on our economy, we do have a Minister—I know he hates being reminded of this, but we do have a Minister in the economy department who said that the Welsh Government didn't have a clue what it was doing when it came to the economy, and he was absolutely right. I can see him holding his head in his hands, and he's absolutely right to do that. We despair along with you, Lee Waters, at the state of our economy here in Wales after two decades and more of Labour—

You do need to wind up now, please.

I certainly will. I think the voters at the next election face a very stark choice: they've got constitutional chaos with Plaid; they've got an opportunity to vote for the Lib Dems, who have shacked up with the Labour Party over the past five years; or they can vote for the Labour Party and have another five years of failure. But I want to encourage them to vote for a party with a plan—a plan for more doctors, more nurses, more teachers, for upgrading our road infrastructure in north Wales, in west Wales and in south Wales, for fair funding for our councils across the country and for a party that takes the environment seriously, that will deliver a single-use plastics ban in Wales and will also deliver a clean air Act for our country.

We are a party with solutions to Wales's problems. We want to see more jobs, better hospitals and first-class schools. So, I encourage everybody in this Chamber today—this virtual Chamber—to vote for our motion and to send that message out to the people of Wales that the choice is before them and they should vote Welsh Conservative.

The proposal is to agree the motion without amendment. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Yes, I see objections, therefore, we defer voting under this item until voting time.

Voting deferred until voting time.