4. What assessment has the First Minister made of the impact that the outcome of the General Election will have on the people of Wales? OQ61445

Thank you for the question. We look forward to working with the new UK Labour Government and addressing together the many challenges and opportunities that Wales and the wider UK face. We want to help create a new partnership to provide economic stability, fiscal responsibility and boost growth. I was pleased to have the opportunity to start that direct conversation with the Prime Minister yesterday.

Thank you, First Minister. Sadly, the biggest winner of the General Election was apathy. We had one of the worst turnouts ever recorded. My party takes a lot of the blame for that, but so does yours. Far from having a tremendous mandate, your party only secured the support of a third of the electorate that bothered to vote. Therefore, First Minister, you have a huge task ahead of you in persuading people to participate in democracy. You made a huge number of promises during the campaign. When will you now deliver on them, given that you have done little to grow the economy, improve educational attainment, or tackle NHS waiting lists? How will you convince people that their vote matters?

Well, I think people who went to the polls understood that their votes really did matter. They made a decisive shift, both away from the Conservatives and in understanding that it's the Labour Party in every nation of the UK that represented that change. That's why we now have a Majority of Members of Parliament in England, Scotland and Wales for the first time in more than 20 years, and I wouldn't describe having more than 400 Labour MPs in the UK Parliament as a poor result. I think it's a really positive result with a mandate that gives us the room to act across the UK, and Wales will benefit from that, but also the responsibility to do so as well, to deliver on the manifesto we have. And, actually, sticking to the pledges we have made in office will make a difference, understanding that the deliberate Division of the culture wars that have been started in the last few years is something we have to put behind us. If we think that our main parties will benefit from going towards extremes of view or demanding that everyone accepts that their opponents are somehow extremists when they are plainly not, I think that will actually drive more and more people away from politics. The anti-politics vote for people who voted for an alternative party, the anti-politics apathy that exists with the fall in voter turnout, I think they speak to how our debates are conducted and the cynicism that I believe exists in far too many communities. 

I look forward to having a genuine partnership with the UK Government. I look forward to meeting the honest challenge on many doorsteps about the length of time it will take to put right the last 14 years, showing that who you vote for matters, and that we are basically decent people who disagree with each other about how to improve the country. I acknowledge that there are decent people in the Conservative Party; I disagree with you about the future for the country. I think that honest engagement will be good for all of us, and I look forward to delivering on our mandate here in Wales and, indeed, that wider mandate right across the United Kingdom.  

It is welcome, of course, that negotiations are happening between Tata and the new UK Government. We remain clear that if we want the jobs guarantee, then nationalisation is one way of securing that. Now, I take what the First Minister said about ongoing negotiations, but if the UK Government does pursue the strategy of giving cash to Tata to persuade them to stay, would the First Minister agree with me that that cash must come with specific terms and conditions, unlike the investment given by the previous Government? And would he also agree with me that one of those conditions should be a golden share for Government, so that any investment made can be recouped when that company becomes profitable once more?

Look, there's a number of discussions that have to take place and are taking place, and I think it's one of the things that people should just reflect on the reality of where we've been, not just the position we've been landed in after several years of a Conservative Government that fled the pitch on this issue, but also when there was a real risk that both blast furnaces would close. Myself and Jeremy Miles spoke to each other; I spoke to Keir Starmer, still the Leader of the Opposition; we spoke with Jonathan Reynolds, still a Shadow business Secretary at the time, and we had not just conversations with ourselves, but with the company and other partners as well. And that did make a difference, I believe, in moving to a position where a conversation about the future is still possible, when it might not have been through that election week. And that has continued after the election. 

So, this isn't just about good faith. It isn't just about ambition. It is about a direct conversation with a Government that has a mandate to act, and the ability to co-invest in the future. And I would expect that that co-investment would come with expectations and agreements on jobs and future investment. I do believe that it's possible to secure a better deal. Even if it were just a small possibility, it must be the duty of this Government and any decent UK Government to pursue that possibility, to try to protect more jobs, and that steel-making capacity that is essential for the future of our economy here in Wales and the wider UK.    

First Minister, our criminal justice and prison system is in a dire state, and many of the people in prison shouldn't be there in the first place; they need to be better helped with the underlying factors that lie behind their offending. And, of course, if the prisons are overcrowded, it makes rehabilitation very difficult, and that creates more reoffending, more victims of crime. So, I'm very pleased that our new Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, has made James Timpson the Minister of State for Prisons to deal with these problems, because through his ideas and through his action in his own business, he's demonstrated his progressive attitude and how these matters can be properly dealt with.

So, with this new approach that we will have, First Minister, will you commit to Welsh Government services, such as mental health, skills and training, homelessness and, of course, alcohol and drug abuse? All of those services, will you make sure that they're part of this new constructive approach, so that we have fewer victims of crime and better standards of life in our communities?

I think the Member makes an important point about the real crisis we see across prisons. It's frightening to have seen what the inspectorate has recently said about the conditions in prisons: the overcrowding, the crumbling conditions as well—a wholly inappropriate environment—and also how full our prisons are getting as well. We're at the point where the UK Government may be forced to build new prisons, not because it wants to put more people in jail, but because it simply can't deal with the people that it's got, and the estate is in such a poor state that we're going to need to close prisons as well. Now, that's another part of the legacy that the UK Government inherits.

I agree with you, the appointment of James Timpson is a proper signal of wanting to understand how you bring people in with expertise who can deliver practical progress. There's, if you like, an ideological perspective that many of us will take about what the right sort of answer should be, but it's intensely practical as well. If you look at what the Timpson business has done, and others, they provide a route for people to leave prison and to have a stable life in wider society. Now, that is in all of our interests. It's in all of our interests as taxpayers, as people who may be connected to people within the prison estate now, but also for communities where people return as well. So, this isn't just about the punishment element of putting people in prison; it is about prevention and rehabilitation and needing to get that right, so people aren't simply on a merry-go-round of going in and out of the criminal justice system.

And it underpins the conversation we need to have about the future of probation services. Not everyone will have read the UK Labour manifesto, but it talks about what is already taking place in greater Manchester, where they're able to link devolved services, including housing and others, and they've managed to link that into probation, and it delivers better outcomes. This isn't simply a case of redesigning a map of where we want powers to lie; it's actually where and how you can deliver better services with better outcomes for the people engaged and involved, as well as the taxpayer. And I believe that is not just a discussion that we will have, with Lesley Griffiths being our lead Minister in this Government, but I believe it's a destination point for the UK and Wales, to have a different form of organisation to deliver much better outcomes that each of us can be proud of.