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

First Minister, Healthcare Inspectorate Wales's annual report came out at the back end of last year, and later on this afternoon we're going to have a statement from the health secretary outlining winter pressures within the NHS. In their report, they touch on there having been various initiatives in place to help support services to cope with unrelenting demand, but their work, on the inspectorate side of things, could find no evidence that these initiatives were making clear and significant differences to the service on the front line. Why is the Welsh Government missing its target on helping hospitals and other healthcare settings deal with winter pressures and the unrelenting demand, as identified by the health inspectorate?

Well, Llywydd, I've read the inspector's report. It's a good deal more balanced, as you would expect, than the question from the Leader of the Opposition. It does point to unrelenting pressures on the service, it does point to increasing demand, but it also quite certainly points to those new initiatives and services that are making a real difference in the NHS. And if those services were not there—the '111 press 2' service, the urgent primary care centres, the same-day emergency care provision in our hospitals—the report is clear that the service would not be dealing with the pressures in the way that it is.

And while the service has undoubtedly, as you would expect, been under very significant pressure at the start of the year—the busiest time for the health service, year after year—actually, the Welsh NHS has shown that, in some key metrics, things have been better this year, despite the fact that demand is significantly higher. So, ambulance waits outside hospitals are lower this year than they were last year, performance in our emergency departments has been better in the last figures that were published than the same time last year. So, despite the pressures, the balanced account that is offered in the HIW report is borne out by experience on the ground.

First Minister, you talk about balance; I gave you a direct quote from the foreword of the report. Those weren't my words about them being unable to find this evidence. These were their words. And I notice you do have a habit of trying to make it look as if we're putting words into people's mouths, but this is the chief executive's foreword to the report, and it's not unreasonable, when those words appear in a report—the annual report—to ask what exactly you're doing. With 25,000 people still waiting two years or more for treatment within the Welsh NHS, you can see what the unrelenting pressure is on our services. And one other point that has come out from reading the report is that 40 per cent of major health establishments, such as hospitals and cottage hospitals, have not been inspected for five years or more. Some have never been inspected. What is the Welsh Government doing to work with the inspectorate to make sure that it is resourced to be able to undertake a meaningful programme of inspections so that those types of establishments that I've just outlined—hospitals, cottage hospitals and major facilities—are inspected on a regular basis and supported in the work that they do?

Well, Llywydd, I don't doubt for a moment that the quotation that the Leader of the Opposition offered was a direct quotation. The point is that it was a partial quotation—that it took part of what the report said and aimed to suggest to us that that was the whole of the story, and it quite certainly was not and the report says that it is not. That's the point that I am making—that while the report, as you would expect, points to the challenges facing the health service, which are real, points to the demand on the health service, which is always rising, it then shows the ways in which the health service has responded to it.

The programme of inspection for HIW is not a matter for Ministers. There is a very clear and necessary separation between the operational decisions of an inspectorate and the service for which Ministers are responsible. I should not and will not interfere in the decisions that they make as to where they go, what they inspect and how they report.

In the current draft budget, you're cutting the budget of Healthcare Inspectorate Wales. It is quite right the point that you make that it is not for Ministers to direct the inspectorate where to go, but you have a direct role as a Government in the resources that you make available. If you widen out that inspection regime across the 1,500 health establishments across Wales, two thirds of those health establishments have not been inspected in the last five years, or have never been inspected. So, I agree with the point that you make that it would be wrong for Ministers to direct the inspectorate, but you have a direct role in the ability to resource the inspectorate. My question to you, on the second time of asking, is how will you meet the challenge to make sure that Healthcare Inspectorate Wales is resourced appropriately so that it can undertake its work—its critical work—in supporting health boards and primary healthcare in particular to deliver the range of services across the whole of Wales, and ultimately respond to concerns that people have when they find shortcomings in that service provision. 

As Members will know, the budget laid in front of the Senedd is the most difficult budget we've ever had to set. There's a choice to be made, and here you can see the choice in front of you. The Conservatives, through their leader, say that they would invest more in inspectorate services. We have decided to invest more in the services themselves. There's the choice in front of you. When there's only a certain amount of money to go round, how do you use it? We have increased very significantly the amount of money available to the service in Wales: a 4 per cent increase in NHS funding in Wales next year; a 1 per cent increase in England. You would have us take money out of patient services and put it into the inspectorate. We stared at that decision; we have put the money where our priorities lie, and I'm interested to hear where yours have been articulated this afternoon.

The leader of Plaid Cymru, Rhun ap Iorwerth.

Thank you, Llywydd. I want to talk about business, and our high streets particularly. Wales needs a government that supports business in order to create economic prosperity and social fairness, and our communities need a vibrant high street.

The Federation of Small Businesses's 'A Vision for Welsh Towns' report found that thriving small and independent shops is a top priority to get people back to the high street, but also there's a general understanding that you've got to offer an experience on the high street. Going for a coffee or a meal, or socialising with friends and family, is a big part of that. Changes to business rates in the draft budget, ending the 75 per cent relief, hits both shops and hospitality hard. How does that fit in with the Welsh Government's strategy for the high street?

Well, Llywydd, we begin Plaid Cymru's questions with this week's topic for more investment; another week and another area in which Plaid Cymru wants the Welsh Government to find more money. Where is this money to come from? We never have an answer to that question, of course. I think three weeks ago, it was agriculture; two weeks ago, it was apprenticeships. I've forgotten what last week's demand for more money was. And this week it's more money for rate relief. Well, I'm afraid Government simply doesn't operate in that way. This is a temporary relief scheme; it's now in its fifth year. It has given more than £1 billion in additional rate relief to the sector to which the leader of Plaid Cymru refers. In Wales, that relief will continue—not at 75 per cent, but at a level that we think will allow the sector to go on having the benefit of further public investment, on a path, as inevitably it has to be, to the day when this temporary scheme comes to an end.

Of course funding is an issue, but there are longer term consequences to cuts like this for the economic and societal well-being of Wales. I'd be very interested if the First Minister would share with us the calculations that this is a short-term decision that doesn't have long-term implications. I met with Welsh hospitality leaders today, who shared with me their frustrations and fears about the future of the sector. Just in the past week, renowned and well-established food and drink businesses in the First Minister's own Constituency have announced their intention to close, and the decision to cut business rate relief has been described as the final nail in the coffin for many independent business by the Welsh Independent Restaurant Collective. The current business rate relief of 75 per cent was never intended to continue indefinitely, say Ministers, but putting a safety net in place one minute and then pulling it away when times are particularly tough isn't a coherent approach. Does the First Minister share my concern that businesses in hospitality are closing because of this, and will he listen to the industry's voices and reconsider that decision?

We will not be reconsidering that decision, unless Plaid Cymru can tell me where the money that has been diverted from business rate relief to support many other programmes, including many of the other programmes that, week after week, Plaid Cymru Members will tell me we have to find more money for—. If he will tell me where that money is to come from, then I'll consider whether I think that he's made a sufficiently compelling case.

I am not plucking anything out of the air about the temporary nature of the scheme. The scheme is funded via the UK Government. They said, in the very first year, it was a one-year scheme, and there was no money at all in the budget for this form of rate relief, until the UK Government made a decision to continue it for a further year. It has always been a temporary scheme, and there will come a point where it will come to an end. We are providing a pathway out of the subsidy for the sector, and I think we have made the right decision.

It's right for me to point out, Llywydd, as well that, at the same time, we are providing an additional £20 million in a new capital scheme that will allow those businesses to carry out improvements to premises that will permanently reduce their reliance on very expensive energy, for example. That's not a one-off scheme or a temporary scheme; that is a scheme that will mean that, from then onwards, those businesses will be able to save money and to go on trading.

On that particular point, businesses told me this morning that is not what they want. Of course they will accept money, but that is not the kind of support that they want now. The priority has to be on helping them deal with the acute problems that they do face now, and the business rates cut is causing more intense problems for them.

Last week I made the case for less short-term economic thinking by the Welsh Government, but isn't the approach to business rates here a classic example of that: a short-term decision with long-term implications? I am asking Ministers to look again at the business rates decision. Who knows, it could be an eleventh-hour reprieve for businesses intending on putting up a 'closed' sign permanently.

But the truth is, of course, that business rates is a pretty badly designed levy in the first place; a pretty blunt instrument holding back too many of our entrepreneurs. I'm up for the challenge of reforming it, because I believe that Wales's greatest assets are its people, and I want to support them in any way that we can. Is the First Minister ready to trigger work on genuine reform of business rates, in his last few weeks as First Minister, or perhaps call on his successors to do so?

I certainly believe that business rates is a system ripe for reform, and the Welsh Government, of course, has done a great deal of work on an alternative system to business rates. We wouldn't be beginning work now, because we've been working on this topic for a considerable period of time. I do think that reform is necessary, and I think there is a way in which we can use the millions and millions of pounds that, every year, we spend on business rate relief—. Only 20 per cent—20 per cent—of all Welsh businesses pay full business rates. Eighty per cent of Welsh businesses already receive help from the public to pay that bill. I think that money could be targeted better, I think it could do more good in Welsh businesses, but that's been the policy of the Welsh Government for a considerable period of time. It's why the work has been carried out.

I did notice, Llywydd, that the third time the Member spoke he had an opportunity to tell me where the money would be taken from that he is so keen to be seen spent on business rate relief, and I noticed, for the third time, he offered me no answer to that question whatsoever.