Questions now from the party leaders. The leader of the Conservatives, Andrew R.T. Davies.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. Before I start, with your permission, Presiding Officer, I'd like to identify with the comments you and the Trefnydd put on the record in relation to the shattering news of the First Minister's loss of his wife over the weekend. Having met Clare on several occasions in my role as leader here and as an MS as well, I realise what a kind and compassionate individual she was and how dedicated they both were to each other. I hope very much that the sentiments that everyone is expressing is a form of comfort, and I use the word 'form' of comfort because nothing will ever make up for the loss of your partner in life. I extend the Welsh Conservatives' sympathies, prayers and best wishes to the family of the First Minister and to the First Minister himself.

Trefnydd, in your previous role as building Minister and planning Minister, you'll be well aware of the issues around building safety here in Wales. There was much speculation and talk in the press on the weekend in relation to the remedial measures that have been put in place across the United Kingdom, but in particular here in Wales. Through the Building Safety Act 2022 that has passed in Westminster, there are measures to make sure that people who live in what are known as 'orphan buildings', which are buildings that have been built by companies that have been collapsed once the project has been finished, can be restored and the liabilities picked up by the companies. Will you, as a Government, pick up those measures and incorporate them into Welsh law here, so that residents who find themselves in similar buildings can have those protections? I notice that Mike Hedges was raising this very issue with you in business questions only two weeks ago. 

Thank you. Well, as is the case in England, the Minister works very closely with developers, for instance, and I know, around the developers' pact, the Minister's been doing that. She's also kept Members updated, so I appreciate that you will already have that information as well. The Minister is obviously working closely with the UK Government to see what aspects of the legislation we can look at, and I'm sure that she will keep us updated. 

Leader of the house, it has been some years now, obviously, since the Grenfell tragedy. The inquiry into the Grenfell tragedy has concluded its work, and we await its report. As I said, in the UK Parliament, the legislation has been passed to give comfort to residents who live in these orphan buildings—there is one literally just up the road from here—who find themselves in the horrendous situation of not knowing whether they will get the remediation works undertaken, and they are living in properties that are unsaleable now and in fear of their lives basically, because of the fire activities that could potentially go on in those buildings. I would hope that I could have achieved a more substantial answer from you, given the time lapse since the tragedy of the Grenfell fire, but I implore you and the Government to take those measures on board to give confidence to those residents that they will get restitution in place to fix the damages.

But another thing that was spoken about by the UK Minister, Michael Gove, was that, where companies refuse to honour their commitments to remedy these buildings, they would put into law the ability to stop those companies being able to work, build future buildings, in those localities. Will the Welsh Government give urgent consideration to adopting such measures here, to strengthen your arm when you are negotiating with these companies, so that—if they couldn't build in the past to a good standard, what confidence can we have that they will build in the future to a good standard? And we need that legislative change here to give the Minister the ability to go into those negotiations and stop these companies doing what they did previously. 

So, in relation to the first part of your question around remediation, I know the Minister has been working very hard to make sure that there is a programme of work that can be outlined, so that people do get that confidence, because I can imagine nothing worse than owning a home and knowing of the potential disaster that could befall it. And I know the Minister also is working very closely, as I say, with the UK Government, and has been having discussions with Michael Gove around that protection, as you referred to it, with developers who do not consider the requirements that will be needed from them, when they build in the future. So, yes, the short answer to your question is 'yes'.  

Thank you for that. I'm pleased to hear that, and I'm sure residents and action groups across Wales, who are affected by this will be pleased as well to hear that response. A word that hasn't been used by the Welsh Government, but, on Sunday, was used by the UK Government, was to apologise for the shortcomings in the building regulation environments that allowed these buildings to be put up in the first place, and, ultimately, end up in the situation we are in at the moment. Given the position that you occupy within the Government, will you apologise today, similar to how the UK Government apologised on the weekend, via Michael Gove? Because, whilst it won't put the buildings right, it will give a huge amount of comfort to those individuals and residents who find themselves on the wrong end of this situation through no fault of their own. 

Well, of course, we are very sorry that anybody finds themselves living with those concerns. But, as I say, it was really important that we took a step back and looked at what work could be done, and, as I say, the Minister does have a programme of work to assist with these people. 

The leader of Plaid Cymru—Adam Price. 

Thank you very much, Llywydd. May I, on behalf of the Plaid Cymry group in the Senedd, but also on behalf of the party more broadly, extend our sincerest condolences to the First Minister on his bereavement? It is a blow that's difficult to comprehend, if truth be told, and we want to ensure that he is aware how much support we wish to give him during this most difficult period, and that, as has been said already, is broadly shared. I was in the Melin Drafod conference over the weekend, and people there had felt the blow of this loss and the anguish that the First Minister faces.

The Welsh Government has formally commenced the NHS pay-round process for 2023-24 by sending a remit letter to the NHS pay review body. The Welsh Government's evidence to the pay review body, along with the letter, was sent on the same day, 11 January, that the health unions said that they were no longer prepared to engage with a review body process that they no longer trusted, calling instead for direct negotiations with the Government for next year. Why, effectively, begin a new dispute with the unions over next year's pay even before this year's pay dispute is resolved? How is that going to rebuild the trust of the workforce?

Thank you. As you know, the Minister for Health and Social Services continues to engage with trade unions. I know that her officials have met with the trade unions today and I think they're planning to meet again next week. We want to keep our door open; we want to continue to have discussions to, obviously, support our NHS staff. As you said, the Minister now is looking to the next year, because in the process, you have to do that. But, I think what is really important is that, unlike England, we have kept that engagement with our trade unions to ensure that they do feel listened to.

Also, I should just say that across the Welsh Government, every Minister is looking at what more funding we can bring forward—we're looking at our underspends and we're looking at our reserves—to try to put more money into that pot of money that we want to give not just to our NHS staff, but to our teachers and public service workers. If that happens, we won't be able to do other things. So, I don't want to underestimate the work that we are doing, as a Welsh Government, to try to bring a resolution to this.

You say that you've taken a different approach to the UK Government, but the remit letter that you've sent mirrors that of the UK Government exactly in emphasising affordability. You also define what affordability means—the amount that you, as a Government, can afford to pay—because you say in the letter:

'In the absence of increased UK Government funding, any changes to NHS staff’s terms and conditions will need to come from existing budgets.'

The problem is that that isn't true, as you could increase income taxes, which would mean that you could afford a fairer pay offer. Why didn't you include that option for the pay review body to consider, if this is a genuinely independent process?

Well, unfortunately, even just a 1 per cent increase would only bring forward—I think it was about £55 million, which, clearly, is nowhere near enough money for what we need. What we need is an increase in our budget. You will know all of the difficulties—from being in the co-operation agreement, you will know all of the facts and figures around our budget. We know that we need further funding from the UK Government to enable us to meet not just our NHS workforce pay demands but others. 

We understand why people who've probably never, ever gone on strike before feel the need to do so, because after a decade of austerity, and we've now got the cost-of-living crisis, we've got predictions of further inflation and predictions of a recession, we absolutely understand the concerns of our workforce about their standards of living—they believe they might be eroded or are being eroded. So, we made it clear that, without additional funding from the UK Government, there are limits to how far we can go. But, the suggestion you have would not bring forward the amount of funding we need.

I think the Trefnydd may have misspoken here, because a 1 per cent increase, according to your own figures, in the income tax level at each band would raise £273 million. What you're referring to—the £55 million—is a 1 per cent increase in the NHS pay bill. So, actually, using your income tax powers, you could achieve a significantly higher pay offer than the one you're currently offering. 

Now, in your evidence to the pay review body, you report NHS staff vacancies up from 1,925 in the summer of 2020 to 3,305 two years later—an increase of over 70 per cent. And even that, you admit, is an underestimate of the true figure. Agency spending, you confirm, has more than trebled over the last seven years to an all-time high of £271 million, equivalent to more than 5 per cent of the total NHS pay bill. From June 2021 to June 2022, sickness rates in the NHS, according to your own evidence, have risen from 5.7 per cent of all staff to 7.1 per cent. Meanwhile the proportion of nurses and midwives leaving the NHS has risen from 6.5 per cent to 7.6 per cent. Vacancies up, sickness rates up, agency spending up, leaving rates up. The only thing going down, Trefnydd, is the morale of the staff and their trust in this Labour Government. What is your plan to turn this situation around? 

Well, the figures I have in front of me around NHS workforce statistics—and this is directly employed staff—is that the workforce is now at record levels. We've got over 105,000 people, 90,943 full-time equivalents, being directly employed by our NHS Wales organisations. All the staff—you go through nurses, you go through medical and dental staff, consultants, registered nurses, registered midwives, scientific, therapeutic, technical staff—I could go on—all the therapists, they're all up over the last three years. I have all the figures in front of me.

We're working very hard to recruit. With my MS hat on, I met the acting chief executive of Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board last Friday and listened to what they're doing as a health board to try and attract more staff. A lot of nursing staff in particular put their retirement plans on hold, for instance, when the pandemic struck us, and now, we are seeing more people wanting to take those retirement plans forward. So, it was good to hear from that particular health board of the plans they are taking. You'll be aware of the medical school that we are having in north Wales—so, up in north Wales, there's a great deal of work being done to attract new staff. But it is important that we look internationally as well, as long as it's ethically correct to recruit staff there, and again, I know that health boards are doing that, also.