First Minister's Questions: As it happened on 25 January

1. Mark Drakeford faces questions from MSs, in a virtual format due to concerns about the Omicron variant.

Hwyl fawr

The third FMQs of 2022 comes to a close.

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BBC

Stalking - 'we do not agree with the Home Office'

Plaid Cymru's Sioned Williams seeks an update on the Welsh Government’s strategy to tackle "the growing problem of stalking".

The first minister replies, "we do not agree with the approach of the Home Office, which seems to place the focus on women acting to protect themselves by altering their behaviour rather than changing the attitudes and behaviours of those who carry out the abuse.

"Now, here in Wales, we have a programme as a Welsh Government of raising awareness, better identification of stalkers, regional training for practitioners in order to address some of the problems that the Member raises.

"Of course, much of what she says, as she acknowledged, lies in the hands of the police, the non-devolved service. But I can absolutely assure her that the Welsh Government continues to engage directly with the four police forces in Wales on this matter."

'I'm not myself an unambiguous supporter of the licence fee'

Asked by Rhianon Passmore about the Welsh Government's view on the future of the BBC, the first minister replies, "we are absolutely right to defend the BBC on a whole range of fronts: its independence and its public service remit to inform, educate and entertain, and also to defend it from what the Financial Times characterised in Nadine Dorries' announcement by Twitter on a Sunday evening as simply part of Downing Street's plan to distract from Boris Johnson's leadership travails."

He adds, "I'm not myself an unambiguous supporter of the licence fee; it may well be, as John Whittingdale, another Conservative MP and former Minister said just this week, that it still is the least worst way of raising funds for the BBC, but it is a regressive tax; it falls most on those who have the least, and a graded system of the sort that Rhianon Passmore set out may be a way of combining a form of licence fee with greater fairness in the future.

"But those things need to be thought about carefully and by a Government that has the core qualities of the BBC as something it wants to celebrate, not simply putting the BBC in the firing line because of its own extensive difficulties."

BBC

'River pollution is an urgent matter'

"River pollution is an urgent matter," says the first minister in response to concerns by Mike Hedges about pollution in the river Tawe.

He adds, "Mike Hedges mentioned the impact of abandoned plastics on our rivers and we are committed to legislation during this Senedd term on the most frequently littered single-use plastics."

Review of the Wales coastal path

To mark 10 years of the Wales coastal path, First Minister Mark Drakeford says a review will be held to "expand the use" of this "fantastic national asset".

BBC

'Covid-19 should be classified as an occupational disease'

Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price calls for Covid-19 to "be classified as an occupational disease, as it already has been in eight European countries as well as in Canada and South Africa, and that those who have contracted long Covid as a chronic disease to exposure at work should be entitled to compensation".

First Minister Mark Drakeford replies "that would not be a matter for Ministers, I think, to take such a decision without the advice they would need, and I've seen no advice directly of that sort.

"But, I do agree with what Adam Price has said about the importance of long Covid. The Office for National Statistics figures that I think he was relying on do indeed show 58,000 living in private households in Wales experiencing the symptoms of Covid four weeks after first contracting the disease. And in nearly a third of those, or around a third of those, people still experiencing those symptoms a year after having had the acute episode."

BBC

'Waiting times are likely to get worse'

"Waiting times are likely to get worse before they get better," the first minister tells Conservative Paul Davies.

He sets out steps health boards are taking to deal with waiting times.

Mr Davies refers to "the damning hospital inspection report into Prince Charles Hospital last month, which found that the arrangements for the prevention and control of infection within the emergency department and clinical decisions unit did not protect patients, members of the public and staff."

Mr Davies calls for "urgent steps" to address the issues highlighted in that report, and he repeats his party's call for a Wales-specific inquiry into the pandemic.

The first minister replies, "you can be sure that right across the NHS, staff work tirelessly to try to prevent Covid from circulating within the hospital.

"The single biggest contribution we can make to that is to go on driving down rates in the community, because this is a virus that finds its way into vulnerable settings wherever those settings are to be found, and the more coronavirus circulates in the community, the harder it is to prevent that virus from moving in, whether it's to a prison setting, a care home setting, a hospital setting—closed settings are where the virus thrives, and the biggest contribution we can all make to preventing the virus from circulating in the hospital is to reduce its circulation in the community."

BBC

Mark Drakeford

Congratulations to Urdd Gobaith Cymru on its 100th birthday

First Minister Mark Drakeford joins the Llywydd Elin Jones in congratulating Wales's largest youth movement, Urdd Gobaith Cymru, on its 100th birthday.

Elin Jones began the meeting by singing the iconic song, Hei Mistar Urdd as part of an attempt to break two Guinness World Record titles by singing together and uploading videos of Hei Mistar Urdd onto Twitter and Facebook in one hour.

Urdd Gobaith Cymru

Preventing flood damage resulting from climate change

The Llywydd (presiding officer) Elin Jones conducts a ballot to determine the names of members who may table questions to the first minister and Welsh ministers. Each member may enter their name into a ballot.

The first question today comes from Plaid Cymru's Llyr Gruffydd, who asks what support does the Welsh Government provide to prevent flood damage resulting from climate change in communities in north Wales.

In January last year, Storm Christoph battered Wales with a three-day rainstorm.

First Minister Mark Drakeford replies that as part of the cooperation agreement with Plaid Cymru, "our draft budget sets out increases in both capital and revenue funding for flood and coastal defences across Wales, as we respond to the challenges of climate change."

Llyr Gruffydd says "one frustration is that it takes so long, very often, to deal with repairing infrastructure. In the meantime, the damage can become worse, and the costs can increase. I'm thinking of examples such as the B5606 in Newbridge near Wrexham. It's over a year now since the damage was done there. Pont Llannerch in Trefnant in Denbighshire—it's a year since that damage occurred on the bridge there."

BBC

Bangor-on-Dee was badly hit by Storm Cristoph

Croeso

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the third session of First Minister's Questions in 2022.

The meeting is being held via videoconference.