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The seventh FMQs of 2023 comes to a close.

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The Senedd will once again be lit tonight in the blue and yellow colours of Ukraine’s flag as a sign of solidarity with Ukraine and its people.

Happy St David’s Day tomorrow!

Image source, Senedd Cymru

Plaid Cymru's Peredur Owen Griffiths warns that cutting support to the bus industry would have "a huge detrimental impact on people's lives. It would also run counter to efforts to promote sustainable transport".

The first minister says a pandemic-era emergency scheme has been extended, for an initial three months.

Funding from the Bus Emergency Scheme was used to keep services running during the height of the pandemic.

Earlier this month a joint statement from the Welsh Government, councils and the bus industry said they "now need to transition away from emergency style funding".

The scheme was due to end in March 2023, but was extended for a further three months.

But the first minister explains, "emergency funding cannot be indefinitely extended beyond the point where the emergency led to the millions and millions of pounds that have been found by the Welsh taxpayer to support the bus industry while the emergency was in operation. Over £150 million over and above the millions of pounds that are already invested in bus services have been provided to the industry since the Covid pandemic began."

Asked by Conservative James Evans what is the Welsh Government doing to make sure children have access to good quality dentistry, the first minister replies they are looking into "ideas for dealing with dental services in rural areas, and the possibility of mobile dentistry in secondary schools".

The Welsh Government is committed to reducing the use of harmful pesticides, the first minister tells Mike Hedges.

He says, "our policy is to reduce, to the lowest possible level, the effect of pesticide on people, wildlife, plants and the wider environment. There has been a steady reduction in agricultural pesticide use in Wales over the devolution period, but there is more that we can and will do in the future."

Mr Hedges says "the worst pesticides include athrozene, hexachlorobenzene, glyphosate, methomyl and rotenone. Based on World Health Organization data, they're particularly hazardous because of bioaccumulation, their persistence in water, soil and sediment, toxicity to aquatic organisms, and toxicity to bees and the ecosystem. Glyphosate is regularly used. Will the first minister look either to ban the aforementioned pesticides or suggest that they are not used by public bodies in Wales?"

Mr Drakeford replies, "I think these are really important issues that deserve to be more thoroughly and regularly publicly aired... the note that I have tells me that athrozene, hexachlorobenzene and methomyl are already banned for use in the United Kingdom."

He elaborates, "Glyphosate is the most commonly used of the pesticides that Mike Hedges referred to. We have up until now followed the rules used in the European Union. The European Union extended its existing permissions for the use of glyphosate for a further 12 months in November of last year, and it's expected that they will issue fresh advice on that before the end of this calendar year. That will feed into a new United Kingdom national action plan for sustainable use of pesticides. We're expecting that by the middle of 2023. Wales can go further than that plan if we're not satisfied with its scope."

Image source, Reuters

Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price says Betsi Cadwaladr is "a failing health board. It's failing patients and it's failing staff".

He highlights three damning reports, "but that's just the tip of the iceberg".

He asks "how many more damning reports are you willing to accept on your watch before a Labour health minister takes responsibility?"

The first minister replies that "the Labour health minister took responsibility yesterday".

Mr Price says the board should not have been taken out of special measures in the first place, and calls again for the board to be reorganised.

Just two years ago the board came out of special measures, after 1,996 days of being under more direct Welsh Government oversight.

Mr Price says "two years ago and with an election looming, you wanted to give the impression that you had guided the health board through significant reform and that you had done your job. It was premature. It's proved to be reckless, and it demonstrated a lack of judgment and leadership."

The first minister replies, "I utterly reject what I regard as a disgraceful charge that the decisions made in November 2020 were motivated by anything other than the advice that the Welsh Government received from the tripartite system on which we rely. The decision, and it is a decision of ministers, to take the board out of special measures was because we were advised that that is what we should do by the auditor general, by Healthcare Inspectorate Wales, and by Welsh Government officials whose job it is to provide ministers with the advice."

Andrew RT Davies, leader of the Welsh Conservatives in the Senedd, refers to the announcement that the north Wales health board has been put it into special measures for a second time.

He says it was "surprising" that the independent board members had to resign.

He explains, "residents in north Wales, give that the health board was only recently taken out of special measures, would understandably be shocked that it's going back in to special measures after being in special measures for six years. The independent members of the board, by the words of the report of the auditor general, were working in a cohesive manner to hold the executive to account".

The first minister replies that the health minister made an assessment of what the Auditor General Adrian Crompton had said.

Mr Drakeford also says appointing a new chair and chief executive isn’t enough, and acknowledges the need for more fundamental action.

"The idea that a new chair, by his or herself, will solve the problems of the organisation, or a new chief executive by her or himself is the answer—I think we have learnt that that is not a sufficient response to the way in which services over such a diverse population, with cultural differences between the north-west and the north-east, that our reliance on the idea that if you could only get the right person that that would solve the issues that have been there now over a persistent period of time, that, by itself, is not the answer", says the first minister.

The Llywydd (presiding officer) Elin Jones welcomes the first minister back to the Senedd on behalf of all members.

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the seventh session of First Minister's Questions in 2023.

Mark Drakeford returns to the Senedd for the first time since the passing of his wife Clare.

The meeting is held in a hybrid format, with some members in the Siambr (Senedd chamber) and others joining by video-conference.

You can click on the play button above to watch the proceedings.