Questions now from the party leaders. On behalf of the Welsh Conservatives, Paul Davies.

Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, on the BBC Sunday Politics show over the weekend, the MP for Cynon Valley, Beth Winter, said there was a lack of radical progressive policies in the Labour Party. Do you agree with her?

Well, as usual, I thank the Member for his close interest in the workings of the Labour Party. [Laughter.] It's good to know that he was following that carefully at the weekend. Let me be clear here, Llywydd, there is no absence of radical policies in Wales by this Welsh Labour Government. During this term alone, we will, as I explained in an earlier answer, provide funding for the real living wage for social care workers and provide the guarantee of education, training or employment for our young people. We will create the first national park in Wales for 57 years, we will move forward with the national forest, we will transform the school year and the school day, and, if we are able to, we will do something similarly radical in the reform of the council tax here in Wales. There is no absence at all of a reforming and radical agenda for Labour in Wales.

Well, clearly, the MP for Cynon Valley disagrees with you, First Minister, and it's not hard to see how your colleague has reached the conclusion that you have no radical or progressive policies. Last week, people in Wales continued to wait for NHS treatments in a week when the worst-ever waiting performances were recorded by Welsh hospital A&E units. With rising waiting times across the country, NHS backlogs that could take years to clear, and now the military enlisted to support struggling ambulance services, our NHS is under severe pressure, and it seems there are no radical, progressive policies to tackle winter pressures this year, either. 

Last week, when questioned, you said that the Welsh Government's plan on winter pressures was just to update its COVID alert plan, but this is very different to the comments made by Dr Andrew Goodall, who told the Health and Social Care Committee that, and I quote,

'on the winter side, just to bring together the range of different activities and the particular context at this stage, we will be ensuring that there is a very clear winter plan that is visible, that connects all of these things together, during October.'

So, which is it, First Minister? Will the Welsh Government be bringing forward a specific plan on how it will tackle winter pressures in the NHS, or was the future Permanent Secretary right and you were wrong?

Llywydd, let me try to respond to the serious point in the Member's question, because somewhere in there there was something of that sort. The NHS in Wales is under huge pressure—huge pressure in everything that it is trying to do to provide a service for people in Wales. Recovering from coronavirus, activity is still not back to pre-pandemic levels because people are still having to wear PPE, people are still having to work in physical circumstances where, in order to keep them safe, they don't have access to the sorts of facilities they would have had previously. We're asking them at the same time to carry out a record flu vaccination programme, a booster vaccination programme, and we're asking them to try to catch up on some of the treatments that were unavoidably delayed during the pandemic. All of that, I agree with the Member, puts enormous pressure, and enormous pressure on a workforce that is exhausted from the harrowing experiences that they will have had to work with over the last 18 months. 

Of course the Welsh Government will work with them. We will have an updated coronavirus control plan, and that will be a very important part of how we face this winter. And there will be plans beyond that for the other aspects of what the NHS has to manage. In order to do so, we have invested £1 billion more—£1 billion—£991 million of revenue and £40 million-worth of capital in this financial year alone, over and above what would otherwise have been available to the health service. And if we are serious in this Chamber about doing everything we can to recognise the challenge that the health service faces and to work where we can together to find solutions to that, then you will find that the Government will always be willing to have those sorts of conversations. 

I'm still not clear from your answer, First Minister, whether you will be bringing forward a plan to deal with winter pressures, so perhaps you'd like to respond after I sit down. The reality is that, after 22 years of Welsh Labour rule, the Government has run out of ideas on how to manage the NHS, has run out of ideas on how to drive innovation and boost the economy, and has run out of ideas on how to support and nurture our education system.

This afternoon, there are two statements on the Senedd's agenda, and a debate, all focused in some way on Westminster. There is nothing on the Welsh Government's plans to urgently support our NHS, our businesses or our schools. As these sectors call for leadership and support, the Welsh Government instead turns its attention to party politics and fighting with the UK Government, a fight that has sunk so low in the gutter this week that the deputy leader of the Labour Party now resorts to name calling. First Minister, will you join me in condemning Angela Rayner's use of the word 'scum'? Instead of your Government focusing its attention on Westminster, can you now tell us when the Welsh Government will be bringing forward plans on the people's priorities, such as tackling NHS backlogs, driving innovation and creating jobs?

The people's priorities in Wales are the priorities that they voted for in May. If ever there was a party that had ran out of ideas—. The Conservative Party in Wales is never going to succeed in persuading people if all they do is to criticise the Government the people in Wales have elected time after time. People in Wales didn't think that Labour had run out of ideas, and they voted for us in larger numbers than at any point in the whole of devolution. If you think that that is the way to persuade them to vote for you, constantly saying that their judgment was suspect, then it's never going to succeed. Nor, Llywydd, do I regard a debate on coal tip safety as an issue that doesn't have anything to do with Wales. If ever there was a subject that this Chamber ought to be taking a direct interest in, in advance of this autumn and winter, then coal tip safety, with all our history—I don't regard that as somehow a waste of time on the floor of the Senedd. We will continue, Llywydd, to bring forward ideas that are rooted in the support that this party and this Government has had from people in Wales. It's precisely because they regard the Labour Party as the party that speaks in a voice and with values that they recognise and want to support that we are in the position we are in, and he is once again in the position that he finds himself in.

Leader of Plaid Cymru, Adam Price. 

First Minister, last week you wrote to Senedd party leaders sharing the latest Swansea University modelling that showed NHS pandemic pressure peaking at the beginning of November. You explained that the Labour Party's decision to cancel its Welsh conference was influenced by this modelling and the need for all of us to do whatever we can to protect the NHS in the months ahead. The clear implication, I think, is that others should follow your example. Is the scientific advice to you, and therefore your advice to others organising large-scale events, that it would be better were they to be cancelled in the months ahead? Does it apply only to indoor events, or does it also encompass sporting fixtures like the autumn internationals? Will you be writing to the heads of other organisations hosting or holding major events in the months ahead with advice similar to that you have given to the political parties?

I thank Adam Price for that. He's right, of course, Llywydd; we do share the advice that we get on the modelling and the advice we receive from the chief medical officer and others as we go into the final decision-making phase of the three-week review. I thank the leader of Plaid Cymru for the fact that, in my memory, there's never been one of those briefing sessions that hasn't been attended by his party, either by him or by another senior member of the party, and that does mean that opposition party leaders are as informed as we are about the background to the decisions we take.

The modelling shows, Llywydd, as Adam Price has said, that numbers of people falling ill with coronavirus in Wales are not due to peak until into the month of October. I look at those figures every day, and to me, they are still a matter of considerable anxiety, but our scientific advisers continue to say to us that that is what they would have expected—that this is still consistent with what the modelling would have led them to believe would be the case, and we can hope that during the month of October, we will see those numbers plateau, and hopefully begin to reduce.

My party took the view that, against the background of that modelling, it was not sensible to bring large numbers of people from all around Wales travelling together to a location where, inevitably, people spend lengthy periods of time in relatively crowded conditions indoors, and that the risk was one that was better avoided. I think it is for individuals and organisations then to weigh up the position for themselves. The position will be influenced by timing—whether they're planning an event at the point where numbers will be still rising, rather than hopefully when things have stabilised and began to decline, whether their event is indeed a large-scale event with many hundreds of people attending, whether it is indoors or outdoors, to what extent it can be susceptible to other mitigation measures such as ventilation. We will make and are making all that advice that we see available to others, and then I think there will be decisions that others will make, but, as I say, in the specific contexts that they themselves are facing.

Some practical questions, if I may, about the proposed COVID pass. Lateral flow tests, we know, are less reliable than PCR tests, and self-administered tests are currently the most unreliable of all because they can be falsified. The technology does exist to upload home lateral flow tests directly in a way that they cannot be falsified. Do you propose using that technology? Given increasing evidence of waning vaccine immunity after six months, do you envisage that evidence of a booster vaccine will become necessary at some stage to maintain your COVID pass status? And since it was reported yesterday that, due to adverse weather conditions, the UK Labour Party conference had to move to a random selection process for COVID pass testing, will that flexibility also be afforded for event organisers in Wales?

Thank you again for those questions. A COVID pass system is a compromise. If you had vaccine passport certification, then some of the points that the Member makes about the limitations of lateral flow tests wouldn't arise, but as we know, vaccine passports come with a series of other considerations—they've been raised here by the leader of the Welsh Conservatives on a number of occasions—to do with the ethics of it, and whether they discriminate against people who would be unable to do that.

A COVID pass allows those people to demonstrate they've taken reasonable measures to protect themselves, but it comes with the vulnerability that, at the moment, a lateral flow device particularly could be vulnerable to exploitation. In our regulations, which the Senedd will have an opportunity to debate next week, we will make it a specific offence, a criminal offence, knowingly to falsify the results of a lateral flow device, to make it clear to people that to do so is to put other people directly in danger. I'm aware of the technology the Member raises. We've been in some discussions with the UK Government about it as well, and if it becomes possible, through technology, to move lateral flow devices beyond self-certification, then I agree that that would certainly be an important step forward.

On the booster programme, we continue to learn a lot, I think, about the extent to which there is a waning impact from vaccination, and the booster programme is going to be with us for many months ahead because you will not be offered a booster until six months has elapsed since your second vaccine. I think that will give us an opportunity to learn a bit more from the actual evidence as to whether or not you'd expect a booster vaccine to be part of any COVID pass.

I failed to write down the final point that the Member made—[Interruption.]

Moving to random selection.

I've been reminded of it. Yes, it's an important point. At large-scale events—let's take the obvious example of a rugby international in Cardiff—the public health adverse impacts of checking everybody's pass would outweigh the advantages of the pass itself, because you would have long queues of people spending lots of time jostling next door to one another. We are clear in the guidance that we will publish that, in those circumstances, it will be possible for event organisers randomly to check people's COVID pass. So, anybody could be asked to demonstrate it, but not everybody. That is what happened yesterday in the Labour Party conference, when the adverse effects of having lots and lots of people queuing outside in very bad weather were thought to outweigh the advantages of the pass itself. But the fact that it could be you, or that you're in that queue and you see people being called out and having to demonstrate it, and know that you could be the next one—I don't think that that impact was slight on people. You could see that it did mean something significant to them.

SAGE has concluded that, even with careful planning, there may not be any net benefit to COVID immunity certification, and indeed a paper of one of its sub-committees has argued that a domestic certificate—which is what we're talking about, rather than a travel certificate—has the potential to cause harm. The technical advisory cell, in its summary, cites two major UK studies that conclude that vaccine certification and COVID certification could be counter-productive, reducing the likelihood of vaccination amongst groups with lower take-up. Do you accept that limiting people's ability to engage in certain activities, based on their certified health status, sets a very uncomfortable precedent? We only have to think back, don't we, to the AIDS epidemic to realise why.

Under these circumstances, I think it is reasonable to expect the evidential case to be clear and cast iron, whereas in the words of one of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies's most prominent members, at best at the moment it's very mixed. To enable us as a party to come to a final decision, an informed decision, would you agree to our being presented with an impartial assessment of the COVID pass proposal by the chair of the technical advisory cell? 

Llywydd, I'm absolutely happy for Members who wish to have a further briefing on this to have it. Important, just to be clear, we are not proposing vaccine certification. You can get a COVID pass without a vaccine certificate. This is a very, very difficult issue. Arguments are very closely balanced. Plaid Cymru's sister party in Scotland is insisting on vaccine certification, full certification, and that Government will not have come to that conclusion lightly and will have seen all the SAGE evidence and all the other evidence that is there. The evidence often doesn't point unambiguously in a single direction and say all the advantages are down that road, and none of the advantages are down the other. 

I've listened carefully to what Members here have said about compulsory vaccine certification, and I share many of the anxieties that people have. That doesn't mean that I could not be persuaded by the public health evidence that that might still be a necessary, if regrettable, course of action in Wales. The COVID pass is not a certificate. You can get a COVID pass without being vaccinated at all, but you do have to demonstrate that you have other evidence that your presence at an event would not be causing a risk to other people. Like all compromises, it has some strengths and it has some downsides as well, but in Wales the Government has come to the conclusion that, for now, this strikes the best balance between the arguments that Adam Price has rightly drawn attention to this afternoon, but the advantages that come, as I saw very clearly myself over the last few days, of having a system in which you have to demonstrate that you have taken the necessary action to make yourself, and therefore others, safe.