3. What are the Welsh Government's priorities for skills policy during this Senedd term? OQ57808

Llywydd, on 8 March we launched our plan for employability and skills. It outlines our priorities to help more people into work and deliver on this Government's commitment of a young person's guarantee, based on the skills that will be needed in the future.

Thank you, First Minister. Last week, the cross-party group on industrial communities heard from deputy principal Sharon James about how Cardiff and Vale College is working to ensure that Wales has the skills needed to flourish from the move to net zero. I took away two key messages around the importance of collaboration across all partners and at all levels of training, from apprenticeships to micro credentials, and also the need to support small and medium-sized enterprises to upskill their workforce. This was a very timely discussion after the publication of the employability and skills action plan, so how is the Welsh Government seeking to address both of these key challenges in its skills policy?

I thank Vikki Howells for that supplementary question, Llywydd. It's very good to hear a reference to Cardiff and Vale College on the day when we hope the Senedd will give its consent for the Tertiary Education and Research (Wales) Bill to move into its second stage of scrutiny here in the Senedd. And I take the two priorities that emerged from that discussion with their vice-principal very seriously, Llywydd. The first of those that the Member has pointed to is the need for collaboration, and the plan itself is the product of a long history of collaborative working with key partners in education, in local government and with private sector employers as well. The plan was shaped by last year's wider public consultation on our commitment to young people's employment and skills. And in ensuring that that collaborative approach is put into practice on the ground, the regional skills partnerships that we have here in Wales really are key to bringing all those partners together to achieve coherence and collaboration in different local areas. 

As for support for SMEs—the second point to which Vikki Howells referred, Llywydd—maybe I can just offer one example; it'll be an example familiar, I think, to the Member for Cynon Valley because it's the Aspire shared apprenticeship programme, which operates in those Valleys communities. I've discussed it previously with my colleague Alun Davies on the floor of the Senedd, because SMEs, which are the bedrock of local economies there, where a single employer isn't able to support a full-time apprentice through the whole process, those smaller businesses are able to get together and share an apprentice. There are over 60 companies involved in the Aspire programme. A large number of them are SMEs. They take 25 apprentices every year, and those young people get a range of experiences. They move between the group of employers that are responsible for that programme; the SME gets the benefit of having somebody, and the individual gets the benefit of being able to gain that wider range of experience and of skill.

First Minister, as you said, last week the Minister for Economy published the Welsh Government's plan for employability and skills, and as you'll be aware, I have called for a net-zero skills audit,

so that we can identify the gaps in skills, information and resources in order to secure our economy for the future. So, First Minister, could you confirm whether the Welsh Government is holding a net-zero skills audit, and if so, when can we expect the results?

Well, thank you very much to Paul Davies for that important question. Vikki Howells referred to the importance of net zero in the original question that she asked. We acknowledge, as a Government, that over the coming decades, in order to have the skills that are required to do what we want to do here in Wales with regard to climate change, well, that is at the heart of that scheme.

The scheme that we've referred to does include a number of practical things to increase the skills that we have here in Wales, among young people in particular, and to develop the skills that we must have if we are going to achieve Net Zero Wales by 2050. Now, we are working with the university in Cardiff to put things in place, to develop the research, to draw together the information to assist us to put in place what needs to be in place to pursue the points that Paul Davies has raised this afternoon.