7. How is the Welsh Government ensuring that the financial sustainability of farms and rural areas is at the heart of the Agriculture (Wales) Bill? OQ58721

Llywydd, that objective is secured through the sustainable farming scheme, as established in the Bill. 

Thank you, First Minister. Will you today, and the Minister, obviously, sitting next to you, consider committing to a fifth objective being added to the Bill to give our farmers and rural communities the reassurances that they deserve? Whether it's the Farmers Union of Wales I spoke to last week, or farmers in my own region, it is clear that the agriculture Bill, and its potential to massively change farming in our rural communities in the future, is the main focus, and it's imperative that we get it right. Financial viability for our farms and rural areas must be at the heart of all decision making and considerations throughout this Bill. That fifth objective being included in this Bill would, crucially, act as a mechanism for farmers, unions and public bodies to hold the Government to account to ensure that this is just the case. Would you agree with me that this deserves further consideration?

I know that it is being given further consideration by the Minister, and that she remains in discussions over a fifth goal of economic resilience. I think there is a strong argument to be made that the four goals we have already identified have economic resilience running through them all, because the four goals are all designed to make sure that farmers can go on being paid for the production of the things that only farmers can provide. That begins with sustainable food production—that is the first goal that we propose in the Bill—but all the other things that farmers are able to provide, those public goals that mean that taxpayers will have a direct interest in making sure that investment continues in farming communities—clean air, clean water, sustainable agricultural practices—are already captured in the four goals that the Bill includes. They're there to make sure that farmers have ways in which, through the actions they can take, they can go on having incomes provided to them to achieve economic resilience. In the meantime, as I say, my colleague Lesley Griffiths continues to discuss with others whether a fifth goal would be something that would, in any meaningful sense, add anything further to the way the Bill is already constructed. 

Finally, question 8, Altaf Hussain.