Questions now from the party leaders. Leader of the Welsh Conservatives, Andrew R.T. Davies.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. First of all, First Minister, I'm sure that you would like to join with me in wishing good luck to the Welsh team this evening, taking the Welsh flag onto the football field and hopefully, putting the ball in the back of the net several times against the old foe [Laughter.] Because, ultimately, we want our fans and, importantly, our team to stay out in Qatar longer and progress through the tournament.

If I could ask you, First Minister, at the beginning of October, the health Minister announced £2 million to improve accident and emergency waiting rooms and the conditions that the people turning up in those waiting rooms might experience. How is that roll-out going, because it was meant to be concluded ready for the winter months?

First of all, Llywydd, to associate myself exactly with what the leader of the opposition said in his opening remarks. He will know that I was able to be in Qatar this time last week. I was able to go and see the Welsh team train and to meet them in their preparations. They are the most fantastic group of people; we are really lucky to have them represent us on that world stage. Their commitment to one another, their sense of pride in representing Wales and their sense of what it means beyond football are absolutely apparent when you meet them. I think that we should be very proud indeed of the fans who are over there as well. Their sense of what it is to be Welsh when you are in a tournament of that sort is absolutely apparent when you are with them, and, of course, I'm sure, right around the Chamber, everybody hopes that that will translate tonight into success on the field.

To turn to the substantive question, indeed, the Minister did announce £2.7 million to health boards. It's been allocated, it is with health boards. I have seen myself the measures that health boards intend to take. Every health board has had to identify the way in which it will spend the money, and those lists are in and have been approved, and action now needs to be taken to make sure that that money is put to best use. I don't think we can be completely confident that everywhere, that money is yet making the difference that it needs to make, but now it is for health boards to make sure that, with the resource provided, with the plans approved, that makes the difference on the ground, so that patients attending our A&E departments have those basic standards of decency to which they are surely entitled.

Thank you for that answer, First Minister. In one breath, it's pleasing to hear that the lists are in—I think that was your terminology—but, regrettably, anyone who looked at Twitter over the weekend would have seen the trail of experience that people were having at the Heath hospital's A&E waiting time room. On your way in, you were greeted by a pile of vomit on the floor, a mountain of cigarette butts on top of a bin, a sanitary provision in a toilet that was overflowing, and a vending machine that had three items of food in there to provide some relief for the times that people were waiting. Also, there were broken chairs in the environment, which the photographs attest to. This really does show how difficult the environment is that people are being asked to wait in.

Now, you and I could debate at length about staffing rotas and other provisions, but, if health boards are unable to get the basics right and, in particular, when you've made money available, is it any wonder that people get very frustrated and very upset when they have that experience in Wales's largest A&E department? But, regrettably, I doubt that's an isolated incident from other A&E departments, and I'd very much hope that the Government can give us some assurance today that you're bearing down on the health boards to make sure that that money is spent, the improvements are made and the experience that both staff and patients will have will greatly improve in the coming weeks. 

Well, I certainly expect those improvements to be made, and I'd certainly expect to see them at the accident and emergency department at the Heath hospital—a new unit with significant investment from the Welsh Government within the last five years or so. So, this is not an old building, unfit for modern conditions; this was a building provided to be fit for the current sorts of services that you'd expect an A&E department of that sort to provide.

However, Llywydd, some of the things that the leader of the opposition has read out demonstrate the challenges that staff in A&E departments face, because it wasn't the health service that vomited on the way into the A&E department, and it wasn't health staff who left cigarette butts all over the front of it. So, I think, as well as, quite rightly, demanding that basic things are properly attended to, and the money that's provided well spent, some consideration is also to be given to the conditions in which staff themselves have to work. And, if you've been—as I'm sure the leader of the opposition has been—to the Heath, you will know just what a volume comes through that door. The percentage of people who come there because of alcohol misuse, the behaviour that members of staff have to deal with from a significant minority—it is a minority, but it's there to be seen whenever you are there—of people for whom they are seeking to provide care. And while the health board has—and I completely accept—a real responsibility to do everything that they can, patients have a responsibility as well. And some of the things that people complained about—and I understand why they did—at the weekend, were the actions of fellow patients, not the actions of the health board itself.

I accept that it's a joint responsibility, but when people are waiting 12, 17 or, indeed, as my colleague next to me Darren Millar from Clwyd West said, he met someone who'd waited 40 hours in an A&E department at Glan Clwyd hospital, it is a fact that the condition they might have turned up in has greatly deteriorated over the time they've had to wait in that waiting room, or in that environment or setting. Several times I've raised with you, First Minister, the ability to get consultants and doctors in particular into A&E departments across Wales, which would greatly facilitate the speed that people progress through the A&E department. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine has a baseline for staffing for an emergency department here in Wales and, indeed, across the United Kingdom. Can you confirm today whether all emergency departments are meeting that baseline? And if they're not meeting that baseline, what are you doing to make sure that they do, because surely you'd agree with me that if they don't meet the staffing baseline, that's creating an environment that isn't safe?

I should point out at the start, Llywydd, that the median waiting time for somebody in an A&E department in Wales is two hours and 50 minutes, so the standard wait before you are seen and treated is actually two hours and 50 minutes. I know that it doesn't suit people always to have the facts, and, of course, people do wait longer than that, but the standard waiting time—the median waiting time—is the one that I've just quoted to you.

I'll write to the leader of the opposition, of course, in relation to staffing matters, because I don't have that information immediately to hand. Staffing A&E departments is a challenge in every part of the United Kingdom. It's a particular sort of clinician who feels that their skills are best deployed in that very demanding environment, when you never know what you're going to be seeing next and you never know whether what you're seeing next is something that you can deal with quickly and effectively, or whether it's a genuine emergency that requires the concentrated efforts of the whole of the hospital team. Those skills are not to be found in every clinician by any means, and, right across the United Kingdom, finding people who think that their contribution to the health service is best made in emergency departments is a challenge. But, I will write to the leader of the opposition with the figures that he was looking for. 

Leader of Plaid Cymru, Adam Price.

Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, today, Cymru meets England as an equal and independent footballing nation on the field of play in Qatar, and I'm sure that we're all praying for what would be the most famous of victories. But, are we equal nations on the fields of power and politics? That's the question raised by last week's Supreme Court judgment. You've said previously that the United Kingdom should now be seen as a voluntary association of nations. Do you agree with your counterpart in Scotland that last week's judgment means that the United Kingdom is not currently, at least, a voluntary partnership, when Westminster not just possesses a legal veto on self-determination but is politically determined, it seems, to using it?

The Counsel General said last week that the best means of ensuring positive constitutional change would be the election of a Labour Government. Should that Government, in your view, commit to creating a clear and guaranteed route for a constituent nation of the UK to hold an independence referendum where there is an explicit mandate in its favour? 

Well, Llywydd, I agree, of course, with what my colleague, the Counsel General, said: that there is a great deal of constitutional repair that needs to be made to the United Kingdom and that the next Labour Government will have a real responsibility to make sure that that happens. I had an opportunity only yesterday evening to discuss the forthcoming Gordon Brown review with the leader of the opposition at Westminster. I agree with what Mick Antoniw said about the responsibility that will fall to that next Labour Government.

Llywydd, the position of the Welsh Government remains that set out in 'Reforming our Union'; it has been our position for a number of years. Colleagues here will remember that what we said in that document was that,

'provided a government in either country has secured an explicit electoral mandate for the holding of a referendum, and enjoys continuing support from its Parliament to do so, it is entitled to expect the UK Parliament to take whatever action is necessary to ensure that the appropriate arrangements can be made.'

So, that's been our position and it remains our position. 

In the conversation that you had with Sir Keir Starmer, did he reiterate the comments that he made in an interview earlier this month, which were confirmed by his official spokesperson following the judgment last week, that he would not agree to an independence referendum in Scotland following the next general election? Is that not a denial of democracy? And on that theme, what do you, First Minister, understand to be the position of the UK Labour Party as to the devolution of justice? They opposed it in the Wales Act deliberations in 2017. Asked this morning in Westminster Hall whether they supported it now, shadow justice Minister Anna McMorrin could only say a UK Labour Government would work in partnership with the Welsh Labour Government, but the focus would be on looking not at

'where justice is delivered, but on how it's delivered.'

Is that also not a denial of democracy? It’s certainly hardly a ringing endorsement of the mandate that you won at the 2021 election.

Llywydd, I also had the opportunity to discuss with Anna McMorrin yesterday evening the debate to which she would be replying. I’m very glad indeed that she emphasised, as I hoped she would, the importance of a partnership between the next Labour Government and the Labour Government here, because it’s only in that way that we will ever see the transfer of responsibility for justice matters, which is the policy of this Government, which was contained in the Labour manifesto in the 2017 and 2019 general elections. So, I’m very glad to see that that was so very firmly put on the record by our Labour colleague at Westminster Hall.

Matters in Scotland are matters for the Scottish Labour Party and for the leader of the party to navigate. I hear what the leader of the Labour Party in Scotland says, which is that a referendum is a matter of timing and, quite certainly in the view of the Scottish Labour Party, now is not the moment when people in Scotland have their minds focused on constitutional matters when they have a winter of the sort that they see stretching out in front of them.

So, you’ve changed your view, then, from the summer, when you said:

'The SNP...won an election on the basis they would seek another referendum. How can that be denied to the Scottish people?'

And Anna McMorrin was directly asked whether she was prepared to commit to the devolution of justice, and she was not prepared to give that commitment.

Now, can I turn to the consequences for Wales from the judgment last week? In particular, is it the Welsh Government’s view that you still hold an Executive power to hold referenda, including, if you so choose, on constitutional matters, using secondary legislation? Section 64 of the Government of Wales Act enables Ministers to hold a poll on how their functions are exercised, and section 60 enables Ministers to do anything that they believe is necessary to improve the well-being of Wales. So, would holding a poll on the constitutional future of Wales using secondary legislation, and therefore immune to legal challenge on competence, be permissible, potentially, using this route in your view?

First of all, Llywydd, let me be clear: I have not changed my mind on what I said in the summer, and the extract from ‘Reforming our Union’ made that very clear. The issue of timing is a separate issue to the basic one of whether a referendum should be held, and, as far as what Anna McMorrin will have said today, she will be anticipating the publication of the Gordon Brown report and will not wish to go beyond what she will know about what it may say on these matters. I look forward to the publication of the report and to it finding a way for us to move forward on the ambition of this Chamber and the ambition set out in Labour Party manifestos to begin the process of transferring responsibilities for justice services here to Wales.

As to whether or not the Welsh settlement offers us a different route to holding a referendum than the one tested by the Scottish Government in the courts, well, as the Counsel General said when he answered a question from the leader of Plaid Cymru last week, we are studying the judgment and we are making sure that we get advice in the round as to where that judgment impinges on the responsibilities and possibilities of the Senedd. I don’t know enough to be sure that I can answer the leader of Plaid Cymru’s question in all its detail. I have a suspicion that it will not be quite as straightforward as he might think—that what the court in the Scottish case tested was whether, in exercising functions, the Scottish Parliament would be within the ambit of its own devolved responsibilities, and I imagine that the same test would apply to our powers as well, even through secondary legislation and even if you attempted to frame it within that very broad ambit of responsibility for the well-being of people here in Wales. But, as the Counsel General said, we are taking detailed advice on the relationship between the Scottish question, as tested in the Supreme Court, and the powers that we have here in Wales, and I'll make sure that the point raised by the leader of Plaid Cymru this afternoon is tested in that advice.