1. What is the Welsh Government doing to safeguard high-skilled jobs in Islwyn? OQ56941

I thank the Member for that question. Llywydd, the Welsh Government invests in the Cardiff capital city deal, provides new powers to local authorities, supports our ambitious apprenticeship programme, and works directly with businesses in Islwyn. All these actions help safeguard high-skilled jobs in the constituency.

Diolch, First Minister. The people of Islwyn are rightly proud of the proactive nature of their Welsh Labour Government in moving decisively to support Hawker Siddeley Switchgear, with £0.5 million of investment to relocate within the constituency of Islwyn, from their current site in Pontllanfraith to the former British Airways interior seat assembly factory in nearby Blackwood. First Minister, the reaction to your Government's action to support a company that has been anchored within Islwyn for 80 years has been tremendous. You personally visited Risca, in Islwyn, during the Senedd election campaign, as did the economy Minister, who visited also with me in Crosskeys. Both of you delivered the message that the Welsh Labour Government would help me in putting Islwyn first. The people of Islwyn cemented that relationship by re-electing a Welsh Labour Government. First Minister, what message do you have for the people of Islwyn in how the Welsh Labour Government will continue to put Islwyn first, back the people of the Gwent valleys, as they seek to live in a community that supports highly skilled employment for future generations?

I thank the Member for that question. She's absolutely right to point to the very long history of the Hawker Siddeley Switchgear company in her constituency. And the Welsh Government was indeed very pleased to be able to support its relocation, because that relocation safeguards the future of those jobs in the constituency for years to come. Not only is it a company with a very secure reputation for what it does already, but importantly to us in making investment decisions, it has real future prospects in the green growth area, helping to make UK infrastructure fit for electric vehicles, for example. So, Rhianon Passmore is absolutely right, Llywydd—the decision to make that investment is an investment in the future prosperity of that part of Wales, and the many, many people who rely on that employment already. That is, of course, only a part of the help that the Welsh Government has provided to businesses in Islwyn during the pandemic—over 300 offers of help to businesses in the constituency, £4.6 million invested in Islwyn alone, helping those businesses that had a successful future in front of them before the pandemic struck us to be there ready to pick up that success story now that the pandemic, as we hope, is beginning to come to an end.

First Minister, I hope you'll join me, and the Member, in congratulating the Conservative UK Government who are protecting millions of jobs across the UK thanks to the furlough scheme. But it is glaringly apparent at the moment that there is a skills shortage in Islwyn, and across our country, including the problems we're all currently experiencing, compounded by the fact there's a lack of skilled lorry drivers. How is this Government looking to address this, First Minister?  

Llywydd, of course, every time I have this question asked of me, I do say that the UK Government acted on a considerable scale to help protect the economy from the impact of coronavirus. I am fearful of the end of the furlough scheme on Thursday of this week. I think, in all the circumstances, it is premature to have pulled away in a wholesale fashion from all the help that different businesses and the self-employed have had from those schemes. We would have preferred, and have advocated to the UK Government, a more targeted approach, in which those sectors that still are furthest away from being able to operate on a non-COVID basis would continue to get help into the future. I think time will tell, Llywydd, whether or not the relatively swift recovery of the Welsh economy will be sustained beyond Thursday and the end of that scheme.

I was a little bit taken aback by what I thought the Member said in the final part of her question. Here is a UK Government—it is hard to imagine a Government that has made a more derisory attempt to solve a problem of their own creation. Of course we are short of HGV drivers, because your Government took us out of the European Union, where we were previously supplied by drivers—[Interruption.] I know it suits Members of the Conservative Party to cover the lack of their arguments just by making a noise, but it honestly doesn't wash. When we were in a single market and the customs union, people were able to move freely across the continent of Europe and to do jobs here in this country. Those people are no longer available to us. The idea that people are going to be willing to uproot themselves and come back and work in this country for a matter of weeks, only to be told by the UK Government they will be discarded again on Christmas eve, when they no longer have any use for them, it simply—. Well, the arrogance of it is breathtaking, but it just isn't going to work. 

Now, there's a lot that can be done domestically to train more people. Eight hundred individuals, Llywydd, through the ReAct programme, have been retrained as HGV drivers since 2015. So, we are doing our bit here in Wales to grow domestic capacity in that area. That is not going to be a solution to the short-term problems, but neither is a scheme that is so exploitative of others that there is no prospect at all that it can deliver what is needed. 

As far as Plaid Cymru is concerned, social care is highly skilled work, and should be treated as such in terms of pay and conditions. It is unfair and unjust that social care workers are not given the respect that they deserve. You may remember, last week, I raised the changes to day-care provision for disabled adults in Caerphilly county borough, from the perspective of the families they affect. We also need to remember that there is a dedicated team of workers that has also been affected by the Labour council's plans. As one union official said in a meeting yesterday, 'These front-line workers went above and beyond the call of duty to work throughout the COVID pandemic, and are now being thanked with redeployment and the threat of being made redundant if they don't accept lesser terms and conditions'. First Minister, how can we expect people to be attracted to the social care sector, and, equally as importantly, how are people with experience expected to remain in the sector, where they are being treated so poorly? 

Well, Llywydd, I am in a position to respond to the general point that the Member makes. As I tried to explain to him gently last week, questions for Caerphilly County Borough Council are best placed to Caerphilly County Borough Council. The Welsh Government's policy in relation to social care, though, is the one that he articulated at the beginning of his question. We absolutely regard the workforce as highly skilled, hugely motivated, deserving of proper recognition. That's why we have a registered workforce here in Wales, to give people the professional status that they deserve. That is why this Government will fund the real living wage for social care workers in Wales during this Senedd term. I much regret that the UK Government were not prepared to put social care workers on their list of occupations that people could come to the United Kingdom to work in, because they do not regard them as highly skilled. I think that's an offensive distinction. I think people who do social care work are absolutely as skilled in what they do as some of the people who are able to come to the United Kingdom because the UK Government regards them differently. When people are in Wales, this Government's policy is to treat them with the respect and with the remuneration, as much as we are able, that they deserve.