Janet Finch-Saunders AM:

Thank you to Siân Gwenllian for bringing this question here today as a topical question. I was present at the WLGA conference, and I was there very close to the stage—I don't think I could have sat any closer, frankly—when the Cabinet Secretary came on stage to less than warm applause from a roomful of nearly 200 delegates. I have to say, after his speech, the applause was warmer; the difference being that he had announced in a split second that he was scrapping the map—the map that he told us when we met with him, if you remember, wasn't going to be a map.

Cabinet Secretary, I have scrutinised you alongside Siân Gwenllian, and even members of your own backbench, on your third set—when I say 'your', your Welsh Government's third set of proposals, so let's just run through this. In 20 years of devolution, we've had no less than 10 Cabinet Secretaries for local government. You are No. 5. These are the third set of proposals for local government reform. Now, as part of the WLGA conference, I was actually very privileged, alongside Rhun ap Iorwerth, to take part in a panel with Professor Gerald Holtham also about health and social care, and the integration of it, and making that a reality. One thing became abundantly clear, namely that good housing or bad housing affects our health. Education affects our health, and social care. Housing—. Sorry, education—I thought I'd written these down earlier. With local government, we have social care. Those are five fundamental services and policy areas that need to be integrated with local government. 

Now, I've asked time and time again, when you decide to go off on one bringing forward a Cabinet Green Paper, what consultation have you taken with your other Cabinet colleagues? One thing that was fundamentally agreed to in that room was that you cannot bring local government reform forward on its own; you do need to integrate health, education, social care and housing. So, Cabinet Secretary, Williams identified this in his report, 62 recommendations of which this Welsh Government has only ever gone forward with four, all relating to local government. Will you at some stage when you make your statement please look at it in a joined-up manner, and bring those other policy areas into line? If you do that, you will have the support of these benches. Thank you

Alun Davies AM:

Well, that would be lovely, wouldn't it? [Laughter.] I'm grateful to the Conservative spokesperson for the 20 years of history she's managed to weave into this topical question. I will be making a statement on these matters in two weeks' time, and I will address the matters that she's raised in her question.