Sarah Cooper-Lesadd

Open this sitting on the stage

1. 3. Questions to the Senedd Commission cy

   2. Pa fesurau diogelu y bydd y Comisiwn yn eu rhoi ar waith o ran defnyddio sbectolau clyfar ar ystad y Senedd? OQ64771

   Official English translation

   2. What safeguards will the Commission put in place regarding the use of smartglasses on the Senedd estate? OQ64771

   Read in full No broadcast timestamp published, so this contribution cannot be placed on the stage. Senedd TV Read this in the Record

2. 3. Questions to the Senedd Commission en

   The Member says his glasses caused a stir. They certainly did. The Commission is undertaking a review, the Cabinet Office has enforced a ban, and it's only a matter of time before other organisations follow suit. The review isn't the problem; the gap before it concludes is. The Cabinet Office has already taken action very swiftly, so I'd be grateful to know the Commission's position while that review is under way. I would also argue that this is a question of equity. Everyone should be on a fair and equal footing. A Member wearing a recording device has an advantage over every other person in the room, and they have no idea that they may be filmed. So, whether the glasses weren't filming isn't the point—nobody else can tell, and a rule that depends on checking after isn't a safeguard.

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

3. 10. Short Debate: Full-face coverings are against British values en

   We are being asked to debate about people on the basis of what we imagine their lives to be. Their lives are not fictional, they are real, and what we debate here deeply matters to them, and affects their perception of their home here in Wales. I want to focus my remarks on a territory I'm sure is familiar to Reform of civil liberties. Members opposite speak a great deal about this, but instead of advocating for freedom, they have brought us a list of things a woman may not do, and are asking the state to enforce it. I want to add a bit of philosophy to help frame my remarks. I choose it deliberately because I feel it has some resemblance to this debate today. Burke's argument against revolutionaries was that a nation cannot be remade by decree, and this goes back as far as 1700. A society is not an arrangement between people who happen to be alive. It is a partnership between the living, the dead and those that are yet to be born. That is the essence of the social contract. The liberties we hold in these countries were not granted to us by anyone in this room. They were fought for, often at huge cost. Lives were lost, people were imprisoned, and often people were hanged for them. We did not earn any of that, we inherited it, and it is our role as stewards of these liberties to protect them for future generations. We are not entitled to erode that liberty just because Reform finds it politically expedient.

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

Open this sitting on the stage

1. 2. Questions to the Counsel General cy

   9. Pa gyngor cyfreithiol y mae'r Cwnsler Cyffredinol wedi'i roi i Lywodraeth Cymru ynghylch defnyddio sbectolau clyfar a alluogir gan ddeallusrwydd artiffisial mewn adeiladau cyhoeddus megis llyfrgelloedd a phyllau nofio, yn sgil y gwaharddiadau sydd mewn grym mewn llysoedd a thribiwnlysoedd? OQ64749

   Official English translation

   9. What legal advice has the Counsel General provided to the Welsh Government regarding the use of AI-enabled smart glasses in public buildings such as libraries and swimming pools given the ban in courts and tribunals? OQ64749

   Read in full No broadcast timestamp published, so this contribution cannot be placed on the stage. Senedd TV Read this in the Record

2. 2. Questions to the Counsel General en

   Courts and tribunals have restricted these devices, and, in fact, I've just heard the Cabinet Office banned them last week. I think we've learned that news from this Chamber travels rather fast. In fact, the Member's glasses opposite have been discussed in buildings 200 miles away. All these institutions have concluded that people in those spaces are entitled to know whether they're being recorded. The same question applies to a library, a leisure centre, a GP surgery or even a school, and these are places where people have no reason to expect they are being filmed. I'd be grateful to know whether the Welsh Government considers existing data protection law sufficient for this, or whether it intends to give further guidance to public bodies in Wales.

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

Open this sitting on the stage

1. 1. Questions to the Trefnydd, Chief Whip and Cabinet Minister for Culture and Sport cy

   6. A wnaiff y Gweinidog Cabinet roi diweddariad ar y rhaglen genedlaethol newydd nofio a diogelwch dŵr i ysgolion? OQ64701

   Official English translation

   6. Will the Cabinet Minister provide an update on the new national school swimming and water safety programme? OQ64701

   Read in full No broadcast timestamp published, so this contribution cannot be placed on the stage. Senedd TV Read this in the Record

2. 1. Questions to the Trefnydd, Chief Whip and Cabinet Minister for Culture and Sport en

   Learning to swim is one of the best gifts you can give a child. I have had the privilege of swimming in the Hampstead Heath ponds, the Serpentine, Lake Bled, off the Isle of Skye and a good deal of the west coast, and one day I'm going to do a swimathon again. It is a skill that you can keep for life, takes you to places you would never dream of and takes you around the world. But not every child has the benefit of that kind of start. Swim Wales found that only 42 per cent of children in years 3 to 6 could swim 25m unaided, which is a serious figure for a country with our coastline, and it's also a safety issue. So, I welcome this programme, but could the Cabinet Minister please outline how it will get to grips with teaching children in areas where there is little provision or where the pools have closed down, as free lessons are not much use if there's no place to have them?

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

3. 6. Reform UK Debate: Local referendums on council tax rises en

   I want to address why referendums on council tax increases above 4.99 per cent would be utterly unfeasible. Now, I'm not going to get into a debate about whether we should be lowering council tax or not. I'm going to be looking at the practical aspects of whether a referendum would work or not. So, before I start, let's be honest, Reform UK Wales is what you name yourself, not Reform Cymru. Reform Cymru does not exist. Anyway, in 13 years, across over 300 English authorities, one referendum has been held: Bedfordshire's police and crime commissioner in 2015. It failed. In England, council taxes can be increased without holding a referendum, and that power has been used regularly. If a mechanism designed to trigger local votes produces no local votes, it is not facilitating local democratic choice. What a referendum does is two things. The first is a ceiling becomes a floor. A council that might have raised council tax by 2 per cent or 3 per cent in an easier year raises it by the maximum every year because the cap compounds. Forgone revenue cannot be recovered later, so the rational response is to build up the reserves that you have and to take the maximum annually and build a buffer. The second is where that cap bites: services are cut rather than referendums held. Birmingham, Nottingham, Croydon, Thurrock and Woking have all issued section 114 notices in recent years, effective local bankruptcy in a system with referendums and still no referendums. It is clear that even though this mechanism exists in practice in England, it is either barely used or superseded because circumstances are so dire. So, let me turn to why this would operate differently and worse in Wales. A referendum costs a local authority somewhere between £150,000 and £600,000 to run. That is not a large sum against the total budget, but the total budget is the wrong denominator. Between 80 per cent to 85 per cent of a council's spending is committed to statutory duties, teacher salaries, statutory social care, waste collection, additional learning needs. We all know that these need to be accounted and budgeted for. A referendum cannot be taken from those. It comes from discretionary services or from unallocated reserves. For Cardiff, I'll admit that is absorbable within central contingencies, but for Merthyr Tydfil, a £300,000 cost represents a materially different proportion of unallocated general reserves. In some Welsh authorities, that is between 5 per cent and 7 per cent of the entire safety net in a single hit. In service terms, that is a library, youth provision or a year of community transport. The motion sends it to Merthyr, it doesn't send it to Cardiff. Then there is the tax-based vulnerability, which this motion appears not to have considered at all. In wealthy English shire counties, a 4.99 per cent rise generates substantial revenue, because a high proportion of properties sit in bands E to I. In Welsh Valleys and much of rural Wales, over 70 per cent of properties sit in bands A to C. The same percentage rise yields a fraction of the revenue. This means a lower income authority must raise it by a higher percentage simply to generate the same money. It is therefore pushed towards a referendum threshold, precisely because the tax base is so weak, and we know that of Wales. So, the authorities most likely to be forced into a referendum are the ones least able to afford to be. It's not Cardiff, it's not the wealthy English shires, it's Blaenau Gwent and Merthyr Tydfil, and they would spend a significant fraction of the additional yield on the ballot itself. And then there is the risk of losing it, which is not a small risk, and that would mean that libraries would shut, youth provisions would go and community transport would be axed. Stand-alone referendums outside of a general election cycle typically see turnout of between 15 per cent to 25 per cent. A referendum on a single percentage figure for council tax would certainly fall below that: you're looking at 5 per cent to 10 per cent. There is no candidate, no campaign, no competing vision, simply a number put to the public on a Thursday in February. And the motivational asymmetry is severe: a resident angry about a tax rise will turn out to vote 'no'; a resident who accepts that social care and libraries need funding rarely feels strong enough to turn out for 'yes'. The result is not a referendum on the budget; it is a referendum amongst the people most opposed to it. There is a serious debate to be had about council tax and the funding settlement and about the burden on households. This is not this debate. In England, this policy produced one referendum in 13 years, a queue of bankrupt councils—Reform have looked at that and decided Wales should have some more.

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

4. 6. Reform UK Debate: Local referendums on council tax rises en

   Do you accept that there have been instances where councils have been allowed to increase the council tax without a referendum and, actually, some of the worst examples are in Reform-led councils, including Worcestershire, at 9 per cent?

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

Open this sitting on the stage

1. 6. Member Debate under Standing Order 11.21(iv): Family Drug and Alcohol Courts en

   I was three weeks old when I came into care in Newport. I was seven when I was adopted. So, when the Senedd talks about children whose parents cannot look after them, I am not talking about a policy area, I'm talking about the thing that decided my life before I could speak. That does not make me an expert on anybody else's family, but I think a great deal about the moment before a child is taken into care, because nearly everything we do for children, like me, happens afterwards, when the hardest thing has happened. In December 2021, Wales opened a court designed for exactly that moment, a family drug and alcohol court sitting in Cardiff, serving families from Cardiff and the Vale, with three judges trained for it. It cost £450,000. In November 2023, it closed, but not because it failed. Researchers at Cardiff University looked at it and found that it worked here, that parents were getting better, that children's lives were changing. They said that Wales should keep it and build on it. The judge who sat in it wrote down his regret in the judgment. He could see what it meant for the families still in front of him. It closed because the money ran out. Let me tell you about what that court actually did. A judge who heard your case properly, rather than whoever happened to be sitting that day. A team of people around you who were there to help, not to judge. Parents were given a chance to get clean while the case was still running, instead of being watched and measured and found wanting. And when it worked, a child stayed at home. They were not moved, not placed, not separated from their brothers and their sisters—at home with a mother who had been given the help that she so desperately needed. Everywhere else, these cases take about a year. Think about what a year is to a three-year-old. It is a sixth of everything they have ever known spent waiting to be told where they are going to live. Let's be clear about what I'm not saying. I'm not saying that every family can be saved. Some children are inevitably safer away from their parents, and the courts are right when they say so. I'm one of those children. But care should be the last thing we try, not the first thing that happens. A child who stays safely at home keeps their family, their school and their peer group, their brothers and their sisters. A child who goes into care loses all three, and we become their parent instead. The Senedd agreed unanimously across four parties that we do take corporate parenting seriously—that when the state steps into a parent's place, it accepts the parental responsibility. I believe that, but a good parent does not wait until a child has already lost their family before deciding to help. If we mean what we said about corporate parenting, it cannot begin at the moment a child comes into care; it has to begin before. The question is not whether this works. England has many of these teams, but Wales has none. The question is why Wales could not keep it. Wales paid for this court; Wales paid for a court in a justice system it does not control. The courts belong to Westminster—the judges, the rules, the whole structure. But what belong to us are the social workers, the health services, the drug and alcohol teams—the people who made the court work, funded from here. Wales could pay for a pilot; what Wales could not do was put it on a statutory footing, because that at the moment is not ours to build. Wales could fund the team year after year and still never make the court itself a permanent part of the justice system. When the money ran out, there was nothing underneath it—it wasn't on a statutory footing. So, this is what happened—not a decision anyone took, not a judgment that this was wrong for Wales, just a court that existed on borrowed time and stopped existing. The Commission on Justice in Wales spent four years looking at this. It said in 2019 that these courts should be established in Wales. It also said that justice and policing should be devolved, because a system split down the middle serves nobody, least of all the people caught in the middle of it. I think they were right, and I do not know of a clearer example than this one. Wales paid for this court. It worked, it closed, and Wales never had the power to make it permanent in law. It was never able to be put on a statutory footing—there's no clearer example than this.

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

2. 10. Short Debate: The importance of port infrastructure and maritime traffic to the Welsh economy en

   I have visited both the Port of Barry and the Port of Tyne, and the contrast is instructive. No two ports in the UK are the same. Some are privately owned and some by trusts. It is easy to assume one company runs most of them. That's not how it works. The Port of Tyne is the largest trust port in the UK. No shareholders and no owners. Everything it earns is reinvested in the port and the river. In 2024, it added £680 million to the north-east economy. Barry is a different kind of port, but no less important. No containers, no ferries, no passengers. Liquid bulks for the chemical industry, steel, scrap and aggregates. But that specialism is why it matters now. ABP and px Group are developing a clean growth hub here. Over 100 acres for battery materials, rare earth processing, carbon capture and hydrogen. The Tyne shows where that leads. It is the operation base for Dogger Bank, the world's largest offshore windfarm, with over 400 long-term roles. Barry is ready to make the same turn. Wales exported coal from that dock to the whole world. We should be no less ambitious about where we build there next.

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

Open this sitting on the stage

1. 6. Reform UK Debate: Default 20 mph speed limit en

   For three years, the word was everywhere. It was in the first election pledge Reform made in Wales. It was on their Facebook page. One of their candidates said it to the camera while standing in front of a 50 mph sign. The word is 'blanket', and it is missing here today because it was never true. Flexibility was built into this law from the start, and it is not an afterthought or a concession. It is the design. Twenty miles an hour is the start, not the destination, and the Welsh Government accepted very early on that the lower limit would not be right everywhere. And so every highway authority in Wales was given criteria, guidance and funding to decide, road by road, where 30 mph should remain. That is the whole architecture of the policy, a national starting point, and local judgment can be exercised where it does not apply. Whatever else is said, 20 mph is not a blanket, and it never was. Some councils have judicially applied that flexibility immediately, and there are countless examples of where that is the case. Gwynedd applied exemptions to over 80 areas of road from the very beginning. They assessed their network systematically and argued that the arterial routes and roads with fewer than 20 buildings per kilometre should stay at 30 mph. On the A4086 between Nant Peris and Llanberis, they kept sections of 30 mph not only because of housing density, but because they were concerned about the response times of the mountain rescue team. That is a real example of a local authority using its judgment to weigh the local conditions and apply an exemption, as is allowed already in the law. Likewise, Torfaen did exactly the same, and when the Government opened the door to further reviews in 2024, they proposed increasing the numbers to 44. While places like Gwynedd are mainly rural in nature, other places are more densely built up, and there are cases where local authorities have judged that exemptions would be inappropriate. That is a case of local leadership in action, not of national legislation. That's something that Plaid Cymru has exercised from the very beginning, that discretion. And when councils propose reverting dozens of roads to 30 mph under revised guidance, that is not the policy failing, that is the evidence that the policy works. If this were genuinely 'blanket', these reviews would not happen at all. I want to deal with two further claims, because they have been repeated as often as the word itself. The first is journey times. Transport for Wales found that reducing speeds to 20 mph results in an average increase of about one minute per journey. One minute. That ties in well to my second point. There is a view that increased journey times put visitors off from coming to Wales. The evidence I've seen proves contrary to my point. A Visit Wales survey in 2023 asked about 2,000 people why they chose not to visit Wales. Thirteen distinct reasons were identified. The speed limit was listed as a minor factor by 3 per cent of the respondents. Around 73 per cent were likely planning to return at some point in the future. Clearly, 20 mph isn't limiting tourism to Wales. So, let us be clear about what is in front of us. Members opposite are asking for flexibility, but this has been available since 2022, the same flexibility that Gwynedd and Torfaen have been using all along. The honest answer is that applying for these exemptions requires patience. It is slower than a motion, and it makes a far worse soundbite, but this is work that actually changes a road and is being done by councils who have got on with the job, rather than telling—

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

2. 6. Reform UK Debate: Default 20 mph speed limit en

   —no—rather than telling visitors that it's not worth the journey. I am told that Reform have been monitoring me very closely, including what I eat for lunch. I rather thought that effective opposition was about the governance of our roads, that is clearly not the case.

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

Open this sitting on the stage

1. 2. Questions to the Counsel General cy

   4. Pa gyngor cyfreithiol y mae'r Cwnsler Cyffredinol wedi'i roi i Lywodraeth Cymru ynglŷn â digonolrwydd cyfraith etholiadol Cymru mewn perthynas â chynnwys a gynhyrchir yn artiffisial mewn etholiadau datganoledig? OQ64487

   Official English translation

   4. What legal advice has the Counsel General provided to the Welsh Government regarding the adequacy of Welsh electoral law in respect of artificially generated content in devolved elections? OQ64487

   Read in full No broadcast timestamp published, so this contribution cannot be placed on the stage. Senedd TV Read this in the Record

2. 2. Questions to the Counsel General en

   Seven years ago, the BBC's The Capture imagined footage of a public figure fabricated convincingly enough to destroy them. It was dystopian and it was fiction then, but today all it takes is a free app and 90 seconds. A councillor in Kent told LBC this week she is thinking of quitting politics altogether due to sexualised images of her being flyposted all around lamp posts around her home and the council building she works in. It makes her feel watched, she said, and unsafe in the town she represents. Other women have said they are now considering whether they should stand at all. This is a real cost, not for one councillor, but for every single woman who decides the abuse is not worth it. Wales goes to the polls in May 2027, and I know the Government really does take this seriously. So, does the Counsel General consider that the existing Welsh electoral law reaches artificially generated material of this kind, and what steps is the Government considering before those elections?

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

Open this sitting on the stage

1. 4. Statement by the First Minister: Legislation en

   Having worked in government, I know that arm's-length bodies most often fail on one thing, blurred accountability, where, when a target is missed, the Minister points to the agency and the agency points to the Minister. The First Minister has set out a decade-long target to halve the productivity gap, which is something we should all welcome. So, who, precisely, will be accountable to this Senedd if that target is missed—the responsible Minister or the agency's leadership? And will that accountability be written into the agency's remit in the terms of reference from the outset?

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

2. 5. Statement by the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Minister for Social Justice and Equality: Update on Early Years Childcare and Play en

   I'd like to thank Kiera Marshall for her excellent question on capacity. The Minister has characterised these benches as focused on worst-case scenarios. I asked whether she'd modelled for very high demand, because planning for a policy that succeeds beyond expectation isn't negativity, it's prudence, but today my question is about proving success. Last week, the Minister told this Senedd we're not able to measure the difference in Wales that having early years education makes. You stated last week that early years provision transforms children's potential, but I'm asking about benchmarking, yet she has told us Wales cannot currently measure that difference. So, this roll-out is happening now. How will the Minister prove that this £375 million policy delivers the transformation she describes when the children reached first will have received the offer before any baseline would have been analysed or met? So, this is about benchmarking.

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

3. 8. Legislative Consent Motion: Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill en

   Diolch, Lywydd. I'm grateful to the Cabinet Minister for bringing this motion forward. Let me begin with a word about the scale of the task. This is one of seven legislative consent memoranda the Legislation Committee has considered, and we have been operational for just three weeks. At least two more are waiting for us in September. If I may say so, we really have hit the ground running, and I'd like to thank everyone in the committee who has worked so hard with me to do this. At our very first meeting, we recognised that scrutinising consent memoranda would be core to our work, and seven in three weeks rather proves the point. But that, of course, is the work of the committee, and it is work we are glad to do. I want to raise three matters with the Senedd today: the timing of this memorandum, the absence of a recommendation and the substance of what the committee found.  First, timing. The memorandum was not laid until six weeks after the Bill's introduction to the House of Commons. We acknowledge that the Bill arrived very soon after this Welsh Government was formed, and we do recognise that was challenging, but the Welsh Government would have known that the UK Parliament had agreed to expedite the Bill through its stages, so the pressure on scrutiny time was foreseeable. Standing Orders expect a consent memorandum to be laid, normally, within two weeks of a Bill's introduction. Better observance of that expectation would greatly improve the Senedd's opportunity to scrutinise, and we have written to the First Minister to say so. Second, the recommendation, or rather its absence. The first eight consent memoranda laid before this Senedd contained no recommendation on whether the Senedd should consent. Instead, in each case, the responsible Minister says a recommendation will follow once the Welsh Government has analysed the wider impact of the UK legislative programme for Wales. We are genuinely unclear why so broad an analysis should bear on recommendation about an individual Bill, and we have written to the First Minister seeking clarity. On this Bill, a recommendation to consent did reach us, but not until a letter on 7 July, by which point we already had to consider this memorandum on 6 July in order to meet the timescales for today's debate. That timetable also forced a decision I want to be transparent about. Because our time was so limited, we wrote directly to the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, supporting the Cabinet Minister's request to strengthen the Welsh Government's role in the exercise of any future powers should a steel undertaking in Wales be nationalised. Let me be clear about why I flag this. We did so because of the specific compressed circumstances of this Bill, and it should not be read as the committee's settled preference. Our preferred position always is the fullest possible protection for the role of the Senedd as the legislature responsible for devolved matters in Wales. Third, the substance. The Cabinet Minister's 7 July letter updated us on inter-governmental negotiations. We now know the UK Government has given a despatch box commitment that it will ordinarily consult the Welsh Ministers if the transfer powers are likely to be used in relation to a steel undertaking whose principal place of business is in Wales. We also note that the Welsh Government used the Interministerial Standing Committee to press the importance of parliamentary timetables that give this Senedd and its committees the maximum opportunity to scrutinise. Llywydd, the committee offers a number of conclusions. First, we agree with the Welsh Government's assessment of the provisions in the Bill that require the Senedd's consent. Second, the Welsh Government advocating for the Senedd to have maximum opportunity to consider Bills that trigger the consent process is to be welcomed. Third, poor communications between the two Governments is regrettable and has seemingly contributed to the delay in laying this memorandum and so the time available for scrutiny. Fourth, the absence of the Welsh Government's recommendation on consent at the point we had to scrutinise the memorandum plainly affected our scrutiny, and we hope that Senedd committees will not regularly find themselves in that position in future. Fifth, as we said in our letter to the First Minister on 8 July, we remain unclear why the impact of the UK's Government legislative programme as a whole should influence a Welsh Minister's recommendation on an individual Bill. We do not consider this a desirable approach, and we hope it will not be repeated when future UK legislative programmes are announced. And, on that despatch-box commitment, it is not binding on any Government, its value weakened further by the fact it reflects only the current UK's Government's intentions, not the action a future Government could lawfully take. Finally, I would draw the Senedd's attention to a document laid only recently: the Counsel General's written statement, 'Welsh Government Principles on UK Legislation in Devolved Areas'. Those principles state, and I quote, that: 'non-legislative intergovernmental agreements, such as Memoranda of Understanding and ministerial assurances, should not be relied upon in place of statutory provision'. This is the Government's stated principle, yet, on the Bill, it has accepted precisely such an assurance in place of statutory provision. The role of the Senedd should not depend on goodwill alone. Safeguards that can be withdrawn are no safeguards at all.

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

Open this sitting on the stage

1. 1. Questions to the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Minister for Social Justice en

   Thank you. On the childcare offer, could the Minister tell us exactly how many additional childcare places the pledge actually requires—whether there is a specific figure?

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

2. 1. Questions to the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Minister for Social Justice en

   Yes.

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

3. 1. Questions to the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Minister for Social Justice en

   If demand is hugely higher than you could possibly ever anticipate, have you done modelling on different scenarios, including the worst-case scenario that could occur?

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

4. 1. Questions to the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Minister for Social Justice en

   I would just come back on that. I think it's normal whenever you are delivering a childcare pledge that you do think about whether uptake is genuinely going to be extremely high. In this circumstance, I think it is going to be extremely high. So, that was my question. But my final question is this: in terms of the data, is there a consistent national framework for measuring early years development outcomes across all 22 local authorities if this is how you want to track early years outcomes in relation to the childcare pledge?

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

5. 5. Member’s Legislative Debate under Standing Order 11.21(iv): A Bill on corporate parenting en

   I would like to record my profound thanks to my friend Terry Galloway. Terry is a care leaver whose guidance has been absolutely invaluable. I bring this debate forward to ensure care-experienced children in Wales benefit from corporate parenting protections at least as strong as anywhere else in the UK. This Senedd proudly took the lead to remove profit from children's care, a defining choice where we rightfully diverged from England. But while we led on removing profit, we have lagged behind on statutory protection. The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 places strict statutory corporate parenting duties on non-devolved bodies like police and youth justice. A care leaver is legally protected by them, yet our own devolved bodies, crucially our local health boards, are let completely off the hook, bound only by a voluntary charter that they sign only if they choose to. The Government's policy is to demand devolution of policing and justice to Wales. Set aside whether one agrees; devolve those forces tomorrow and the statutory duty to look out for a care leaver simply falls away. Whatever you believe about where power should sit, this isn't about this. Our most vulnerable children should not pay the price. So, I challenge the Deputy Minister to answer: would devolution carry this protection across or dissolve it into a charter?

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

6. 5. Member’s Legislative Debate under Standing Order 11.21(iv): A Bill on corporate parenting en

   I understand that Government say the voluntary charter is better because it can reach private and third sector bodies that legislation cannot, but let us be honest about how private organisations behave. They follow the law not a leaflet, so the charter's breadth is precisely its weakness—it reaches widely because it demands less. Keep it for the bodies we cannot compel, but for our health boards and NHS trusts, the bodies we can bind, a care leaver deserves the duty the law enforces, not a promise quietly set aside. We do not leave safeguarding to goodwill, so we should not leave corporate parenting to it either. The Counsel General leaned heavily on one specific defence: that part 6 of the code of practice is being revisited with a new chapter on corporate parenting to be laid later this year. I must tell the Chamber that this defence is a dead end. By law, its scope is strictly limited. It applies solely to local authorities exercising social services functions. It cannot legally impose a single duty on a health board.  Local authorities are already under a statutory corporate parenting duty. This achieves absolutely nothing for a young person failed by the NHS. The Government cannot expand the scope of this code; only primary legislation passed by this Senedd can. And I hope no-one offers me yet another review, because, in 2023, the Senedd's own committee looked at exactly this, and asked a question titled, 'If not now, then when?' Three years on, we are still answering 'not yet'. The legal reality is clear: the most robust mechanism is an Act of the Senedd, one that either imposes duties directly or requires Ministers to bring regulations that we can subsequently shape together. Section 23 of the English Act already provides wording that could be adapted for our devolved bodies. The power is ours; it was always ours. No duty is entirely immune from judicial review, but that risk is not managed by inaction, but by drafting duties clearly with ascertainable standards and robust targets. That is a reason to legislate carefully, not an excuse to avoid legislating at all. The risk we face by doing nothing is we are simply paying different parts of the system to manage a crisis we failed to prevent. We are not saving money by relying on voluntary charters, and far, far, far more importantly, we save a life from avoidable suffering, because this, above all else, is not a monetary question, but a moral question. These are children who do not have what we had. The average young person in Wales leaves the parental home at 24, but many care leavers are forced out at 18—it is a sheer cliff edge that I would have faced—with no parents to catch them when they fall. Leaving care is a predictable route into destitution, with one in four care leavers ending up homeless. The Children, Young People and Education Committee asked us, 'Would any of us claiming the system works be happy for our own child to be cared for by that system?' I certainly would not. Would you? I will be honest about the journey this motion has taken to reach the floor today. When I first tabled it, I did not feel the broad support across the Chamber. But that has since changed, and I am genuinely deeply grateful to those who broke rank, did the right thing and put their names to it. I single none of them out, except to thank them sincerely. But I would gently say this: the moral case for strengthening care-experienced children's rights did not suddenly become true last week. It was always true. The reaction to this week has shown that the public appetite for this is massive. It is the very reason they need statutory duties the system is legally bound to honour, not a voluntary promise it may choose to keep. Some may ask whether this is the moment, whether, amongst all the pressures on the Senedd, this is the priority. But my answer to them would be: if not now, then when? For a care-experienced child at the cliff edge, there is no 'later'. Their childhood is not on hold while we find a better time. Each year we wait is another year of young people falling through a gap we already know how to close. After all, it is not just about words, but about actions, signalling to care leavers in law that they matter. Sometimes you do have to legislate in order to send a signal to care leavers that their rights are enshrined in law, and I believe that that is really significant, no matter what the voluntary charter says. Remember, the law is our living word, our living promise, and the law, ultimately, outlasts us all.

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

7. 5. Member’s Legislative Debate under Standing Order 11.21(iv): A Bill on corporate parenting en

   I thank Members for contributing to this important debate and for the breadth of the discussions—they've been truly deep and insightful. Beca Brown put it exactly right: we must be honest about our current protections, how strong they are and whether they are fit for purpose, and who is held accountable. I think that's one of the most key and important questions in this. Nigel Williams reminded us that children do not experience services in silos and that it's about a culture that listens. He is right, and you cannot build that culture on a voluntary promise that some bodies keep and some don't. Lynne Neagle—I mean it says it all that you couldn't even find on your own health board's website information about what the duties did and what the duties didn't do. This is precisely the difference in some cases between a charter and a law. I also thank Jane Dodds for her intervention. She is exactly right about lines of accountability, and this is why we're having this debate today. And—

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

8. 5. Member’s Legislative Debate under Standing Order 11.21(iv): A Bill on corporate parenting en

   Yes.

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

9. 5. Member’s Legislative Debate under Standing Order 11.21(iv): A Bill on corporate parenting en

   I would say that I'm going to work with the Minister on this to shape legislation going forward. I thank the Minister for her openness to working with me on this, and I want to work in that spirit. I think that's really important. Volunteerism is a wonderful part of our Welsh culture, and we don't need to lose this, but I think we can have a hybrid approach between a statutory obligation and also a voluntary action as well. So, I look forward to working with the Minister on this.

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

Open this sitting on the stage

1. 3. Questions to the Senedd Commission cy

   4. Pa asesiad y mae'r Comisiwn wedi'i wneud o ddigonolrwydd y cymorth diogelwch sydd ar gael i'r Aelodau wrth gyflawni eu dyletswyddau? OQ64307

   Official English translation

   4. What assessment has the Commission made of the adequacy of the security support available to Members in carrying out their duties? OQ64307

   Read in full No broadcast timestamp published, so this contribution cannot be placed on the stage. Senedd TV Read this in the Record

2. 3. Questions to the Senedd Commission en

   Some Members have faced serious incidents, including criminal damage to their homes. Concerns have been raised with me about how responsive the support around them has been, but this problem now reaches beyond Members. On National Fish and Chip Day, I had to take a video down, celebrating local traders in my constituency. Simply showing support for an independent business had exposed that business to targeted online abuse. In fact, I spoke to BBC Radio Wales about this. We have reached a point where I must think twice before publicly championing a cafe or a shop for fear of what it brings down on them. So, I ask the Commissioner: what assurance can the Commission give that its security support for Members is genuinely adequate and properly co-ordinated with the police, and does it accept that the climate of abuse around political life has become so corrosive that it now not just silences Members, but the ordinary businesses and constituents caught in the crossfire?

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

3. 6. Member Debate under Standing Order 11.21(iv): Trauma and Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) en

   This motion speaks of adverse child experiences of the half of adults in Wales who carry at least one. I want to be honest with this Senedd today—I am one of them. I did not learn about this from a policy paper. I lived them. My story did not start with adoption. It began with loss. My birth mother died when I was three weeks old. She had postnatal psychosis, a severe, frightening and treatable condition, and she did not get the help she needed in time. Today, with her history known, she might have been seen before crisis ever came, supported through pregnancy, monitored in the weeks that followed, kept safe. She fell through every gap the system had, and the highest price was paid by her and by a three-week-old baby, me, who entered care because the mother who loved her could not be saved. My birth father took me in for a time, and then he gave me up too. So, before I was old enough to understand the world, I'd already been let go of twice. I was not told how she died until I was 10. People sometimes assume you cannot grieve someone you never really knew. You can. You mourn not who they were, but everything you never got to be. I have grieved my mother my entire life. I have two photographs, and never once heard her voice. So, I did not come to these issues through a briefing, I came to them as the child in the file, the case number, the placement. I was adopted at seven, and I will tell you the truth of that too, because we are far too comfortable with the tidy version—the rescued child, the happy ending. I grew up housed in a family yet always somehow a guest in it, tolerated more than wanted, my place forever something I had to earn and feared I could lose. Adoption did not end my trauma, it gave it a new shape, and, as Kiera Marshall rightly reminded us, an adoption order does not settle everything a child carries. That is what trauma does. It does not close the file because the paperwork says the child is settled. But I do not stand here only as someone who was failed, because others did not fail me. I did not get here alone. Along the way there were people, a family friend, teachers, others who simply took the time to listen, who saw past the file to the person and showed me that the world was wider than the one I’d been given. They did nothing extraordinary, but they chose to see me and to believe I might become something before I dared believe it myself. And that changed the entire course of my life. And that is at the heart of it. The difference between a care-experienced child who thrives and the one who does not is rarely talent, and never worth. It is about whether someone in the system chooses to see them. And this is what trauma-informed practice means—not a slogan, not a toolkit gathering dust, but a culture in which the midwife, the teacher, the nurse, the social worker are equipped to see the person, not just the case. And the evidence is not just soft. An unhealed childhood becomes measurably a costlier and a shorter adult life. So this is a matter of public prevention and of public money. Every £1 spent seeing a struggling mother or a frightened child is a £1 not spent later in our hospitals, our courts or our crisis services, and we do see the stark figures of care-experienced children, who do have a higher rate of homelessness. The figures tell you all that you need to know. So, let me offer three specifics: first, that trauma-informed training should be standard for those on the front line, second, that a person should only have to tell their story once, not relive the worst of their life at every new desk, and, third, we recognise that trauma does not respect our administrative cliff edges—it does not end at adoption, it does not end at 18, it does not end once the file is closed, so neither should support. I will end where I began, with her. I am in this life in part to live a life she never got the chance to, and to honour a mother I knew for three weeks but have carried every single day since. And honouring her does not end with this motion. I will keep pressing the Senedd next week and beyond to give care-experienced young people not warm words, but protections they can truly rely on. This includes my debate on corporate parenting next Wednesday. If my being here means anything, let it mean this—that we build a Wales that sees a struggling mother and the frightened child before it is too late. That Wales might have saved her.

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

Open this sitting on the stage

1. 7. Reform UK Debate: Statutory register for lobbyists en

   I'd like to begin not with an argument, but with a picture. Picture someone walking into this building on a quiet afternoon. They have a meeting, and no-one will ever write it down. They make their case in the quiet—a Bill, a clause, a decision that will touch 3 million lives. And as they speak, the law begins to move, slowly, almost imperceptibly, towards an interest you cannot see, for a purpose you will never be told. Then they rise and they leave, and the room is left exactly as it was before, every chair in its place, as though no-one had ever set foot inside—no name, no record, no trace, nothing to say they were ever here, as if they never existed and they were never real. And yet the law now bears their fingerprints, and not one of us will ever know whose hand left them here. That is the most unsettling part, that someone can reach into the life of a law, shape it to their will, and leave the room behind exactly as they found it. That is not a failing in our system in Wales—that is the system. We are among the very last democracies in the western world still content to be haunted in this way, to let our laws be shaped by the hands we will never see and we will never know. So, the question that I will now ask is: how do we build a good one? The UK Bill built its register before Ireland did, and built it badly. It captures only consultant lobbyists, and it's been judged the least transparent in the western world. The US has 10 times as many lobbyists on its public register, even adjusting for population. Ireland took the opposite path. It captures anyone lobbying a public official, backs it with a regulator that monitors, investigates and fines, and receives roughly 10 times the returns. Same idea, opposite result. The difference wasn't effort, it was design, and we needn’t reinvent the wheel. Scotland already shows the way—a Government Bill run by the Parliament itself. But breadth must be built with care. When the Standards of Conduct Committee took evidence, the Wales Council for Voluntary Action rightfully gave a warning that we should heed: get the definition wrong and you haul a foodbank into the same net as a corporate lobbying machine, frightening off the very charities democracy depends on. And my colleague Peredur Owen Griffiths made an absolutely excellent point, and I pay homage to his speech. The question isn't whether Wales should have a register. Scotland has had one since 2016, Ireland since 2015, the EU has one, and even Finland has one. The real question is whether Wales builds a register that works, or one that merely looks good and changes nothing, because, at present, we have almost nothing, a resolution of this Senedd from 2013, and note what it does—it places duties on us, on Members, to take notes and decline paid advocacy. It places absolutely no duties on the lobbyists. It is passive, it is unenforceable, and tells the people of Wales next to nothing about who is shaping their laws. And let me address something else. Transparency does not depend on the purity of whoever makes the case. It depends on whether the rules are right. Strong rules protect the public from wrongdoing in every party, including, when warranted, my own. I would far rather be the Member who argued for these rules than the ones that quietly hoped they'd never come. Which brings me to amendment 1. This Senedd has examined this question twice—a full inquiry in the last Senedd, and another one in 2018. Twice this evidence was gathered, twice nothing was built, and now we are asked to hand it to another committee to examine it again. So, what was missing was never analysis—it was the will to legislate. This Welsh Government or this Senedd's own Commission has every power to bring forward a Bill. Replacing a call to create a register with an invitation to re-examine it is not caution, it is delay. Because, in the end, this is not about lobbyists who do legitimate work—it is about one simple question any person in Wales is entitled to ask: who was in the room? Who was in the room when this law was written, and why was I not allowed to know? Answer that and you have a democracy worth trusting. Refuse to and we should not be surprised when people stop believing in this place at all.

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

Open this sitting on the stage

1. 1. Questions to the First Minister cy

   3. Sut bydd Llywodraeth Cymru yn sicrhau bod yr adolygiad sydd ar ddod o drefniadau etholiadol y Senedd yn cryfhau hyder y cyhoedd yn nemocratiaeth Cymru? OQ64136

   Official English translation

   3. How will the Welsh Government ensure the forthcoming review of Senedd electoral arrangements strengthens public confidence in Welsh democracy? OQ64136

   Read in full No broadcast timestamp published, so this contribution cannot be placed on the stage. Senedd TV Read this in the Record

2. 1. Questions to the First Minister en

   First Minister, the Welsh election study found that fewer than one in eight people understood the new voting system at this year's election—a system only introduced months ago. I know fewer ballots were spoiled, and we all welcome that, but a simple ballot is not the same as a system being understandable. Being able to mark a paper easily tells us nothing about whether people grasp how their vote translates into who represents them. So, how can it be right to contemplate changing the system again? The single transferable vote is one of the options being considered. Before people have come to terms with it, does he not accept that changing the system again so soon would erode the very confidence in our democracy he wants to build?

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

Open this sitting on the stage

1. 2. Questions to the Cabinet Minister for Rural Resilience and Sustainability en

   Cabinet Minister, reducing sewage discharges into the River Kenfig depends on robust regulation. Just three days ago, Ofwat confirmed an enforcement package against Welsh Water for the widespread water failures—over £40 million of it targeted at reducing spills at storm overflows. While I realise that allocation of that package is a matter for Ofwat, the Welsh Government sets the strategic priorities for Natural Resources Wales. So, what steps is the Minister taking to ensure that Natural Resources Wales works effectively with Ofwat to press for a portion of this money to address the failing infrastructure affecting the River Kenfig catchment and to satisfy himself that those spills actually fall?

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

2. 5. Reform UK Debate: Childcare offer en

   I support the motion in the name of the leader of Reform, Dan Thomas. In doing so, I want to address amendment 1. This amendment notes that we have no childcare commitments in our manifesto, but, let's be honest, this debate is not a retrospective view of campaign literature; it is a live and operational challenge facing the Welsh Government. In doing so, I'd like to make a focused, sensible, practical case, not about intentions, but about whether the foundations are in place to deliver it well. My colleague over here spoke about delivery, and that's what I want to speak about today. Let me start with the data. Here is the uncomfortable truth: Wales cannot yet see clearly how its youngest children are doing. High-level frameworks cannot mask just how fragmented this data is across 22 local authorities. Let me be clear: Senedd Research explicitly confirmed that, despite running the childcare offer and Flying Start for years, we have no mechanism to compare development outcomes between children who receive free childcare and those who do not. The Deputy First Minister promises measurable outcomes, clear targets and milestones, but you cannot measure outcomes when you have no mechanism to capture. Without that fundamental data, the Government is simply expanding in the dark. This is precisely where childcare meets Government effectiveness. The Cabinet Minister himself confirmed in response to my written question WQ98571 that his role is to monitor progress and track progress against outcomes, and that was the 100-day plan. I do not envy the task he faces. He has inherited a system where finding a unified framework to measure national plans remains an uphill battle. No Government should be in that situation. But why, after 27 years of devolution, must the Minister for effectiveness still fight a fragmented data foundation to prove this policy is working? I don't understand why. We cannot deliver an effective childcare offer on broken machinery. This goes to the heart of the choice the Government must make: quality or quantity. The Deputy First Minister spoke passionately about the devastating human cost of child poverty. I completely agree on the gravity of that crisis. But scaling a major multi-pound programme before the foundations are stable is risky. You cannot claim a strategic approach to poverty reduction when your data is too fragmented to measure whether your flagship policy lifts a single family out of hardship. The Deputy First Minister highlighted that Steffan Evans of the Bevan Foundation will co-chair her new expert group on tackling child poverty. Of course, we all welcome that expertise, which is extremely important, but this Government itself frames this expansion as a key tool—and I say 'a key tool'—to tackle poverty. So, it should heed the Bevan Foundation's warning about fragmentation. A single universal offer is welcome and should standardise what families are entitled to, but it does not on its own give any consistent way to measure whether it is working, whether it is genuinely improving children's outcomes across 22 local authorities. Then there is the workforce. I must gently remind the frontbench of a prescient warning made several years ago by someone who understood this sector deeply and now serves within this very Government. They warned that we could end up with a notional childcare offer without adequate funding to provide, train and retain staff, so that accessing it in your community becomes very difficult if not impossible. And let me say this: this warning was exactly right, and it remains exactly right now. We are now facing a chronic staffing emergency in the early years sector. The Deputy First Minister has commissioned a new steering group to find efficiencies in the system. You do not build the walls while the foundations are still crumbling. If this Government expands this programme before fixing what is broken underneath, they are simply scaling up a system that is bound to fail the very families that need it the most. We must secure the foundation now precisely so that this policy can succeed. Because there is a wider pattern here. Too often, we are offered, not a decision, but the promise of one: a steering group, a pilot, a strategy to come. A change of Government has exposed a system that is cautious, process obsessed, and slow to act. Let's be honest, the capital that Ministers have today will never be higher. If they do not use it now to drive decisions, the drift will persist and children will wait. So, let me sum up: children must stay at the centre of this, not the timetable, not the headline, not the politics—the children. Get the data, the quality and the workforce right and this can work. Get them wrong, and we will have spent a great deal of public money to deliver something that simply does not work.

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

Open this sitting on the stage

1. 2. Business Statement and Announcement en

   I know the leader of Reform raised the crisis facing newly qualified midwives at FMQs, but I make no apology for returning to it. When a constituent comes to me in this situation, I have a moral imperative to give this a voice. This constituent has explained that, despite having 2,400 hours of unpaid placement on dangerously understaffed wards, she and her peers are being told, three months from qualifying, to look for work outside the profession because these posts do not exist. She reports that 60 are graduating from Cardiff alone, against 69 midwifery posts in the entirety of Wales. So, I'd like to say this: this is a tragic waste of talent when maternity services are under acute pressure. Will this Government make a statement on this failure in workforce planning and commit to looking at these posts?

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

Open this sitting on the stage

1. 4. Business Statement and Announcement en

   Trefnydd, constituents in Kenfig have raised serious concerns about the condition of the afon Kenfig following sewage discharges. In fact, this is so serious that the river is devoid of life, and little progress seems to have been made in addressing this serious issue. In fact, some Members in this house have even addressed this today. So, could we have a statement from the Cabinet Secretary on what action Welsh Water is taking and how this Welsh Government will hold them to account?

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record

2. 6. Statement by the Cabinet Minister for Enterprise, Connectivity and Energy: Enterprise, Connectivity and Energy Priorities en

   I thank the Cabinet Secretary. I should declare an interest; I've worked with Lord Grimstone in the UK's Office for Investment, so I deeply care about this, as someone who's seen at close hand what can be achieved when you've got the true ingredients together. A properly designed body in this circumstance, according to his own figures, attracted well over £50 billion. That experience makes me more rather than less exacting about delivery. Such a body only works with genuine commercial freedom and clear accountability, and Wales has tried various models that have lacked this in the past. So, my question is clear: why is this different to other models that have come in the past? How will this agency recruit the expertise the standard model cannot? And what other clear targets, so that success can be measured, so this creates a one-stop for investors to come into Wales and to invest?

   Read in full See it in the chamber Senedd TV Read this in the Record