That's all for today's first minister's questions, where Plaid Cymru's Rhun ap Iorwerth came under fire from opposition politicians for Monday's meeting with fellow pro-independence first ministers from Northern Ireland and Scotland.

FMQs on Tuesday was notable for being the first session after the end of the summer recess, and also for the absence of Reform's Welsh leader Dan Thomas - who his party said was unavailable for "personal reasons".

Elsewhere:

• Helen Jenner, of Reform, said the first minister had "no mandate" to break up the UK, and asked if he had knowingly misled the public by stating he would not push for an independence referendum during his first term
• Labour's Ken Skates accused the first minister of pleasing "Trump and Putin" after Monday's meeting
• Skates took aim at ap Iorwerth over promises from Plaid to resolve a health visitor pay dispute
• The Conservative's Darren Millar said the first minister should instead focus on fixing the Welsh NHS, and Tory colleague Sam Rowlands accused ap Iorwerth of being obsessed with independence while Wales reacted to a slump in its Pisa education scores

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Image source, Senedd Cymru

Christiana Emsley from Reform says 26 of Rhun ap Iorwerth's Plaid backbenchers "have publicly objected to the clinically-led pause" of referrals by the Welsh Gender Service.

The pause was made after the service was made subject to an independent clinical review due to concerns about referrals of patients.

"There is not a modicum of evidence that this Welsh government and Plaid Cymru have demonstrated that patient safety comes before ideology," she says, and asks if the first minister will accept findings without "political interference".

Rhun ap Iorwerth says it has been made it clear that clinical evidence is central to these decisions, which were made from a joint committee rather than ministers.

"There's a real irony, though, isn't there, about this throwing of an accusation of behaving in an ideological way where we have extreme ideology from the Reform benches here," he says.

"What we need to make sure is that we have a review to understand exactly what has happened based on clinical evidence. That's what everybody wants to see happening while supporting the trans community in the process."

Image source, Senedd Cymru

Conservative member Sam Rowlands asks ap Iorwerth on the recently published Pisa results for Wales, which revealed that its performance in international education tests for 15-year-olds had fallen further behind other UK nations.

The first minister calls the results "deeply disappointing", and underline "the scale of the challenge that we that we face".

Rowlands says Senedd members and the public "are so frustrated with your obsessive pursuit of independence, when what you should be doing is focus on these issues in the classroom to support our children with the best outcomes possible".

Ap Iorwerth responds saying there is "a global downturn in Pisa scores", and that his government intends to learn from England which has bucked the trend.

"My cooperation isn't exclusively, with Scotland and Northern Ireland. I point that out. You know, we work with ministers in the UK government and internationally too," he says.

Reform's David Hughes asks if the first minister can confirm that any planned protections for private and social renters will see Welsh people prioritised over "recent arrivals".

Rhun ap Iorwerth says: "We have many pressures on housing. Those pressures, when we look at the big picture, do not come from recent arrivals from overseas."

Zaynub Akbar, of Plaid Cymru, says private lending was increasingly unaffordable, and limiting annual rent increases was "essential".

Ap Iorwerth responds that it is important to explore the potential for measuring rent increases.

Image source, Senedd Cymru

During her questions to the first minister Reform's Helen Jenner accused him of failing "to act in time" when Wales faced wildfires during the summer.

"Whose idea was it to send an emergency alert in two separate messages, rather than one bilingual message?", she asked, saying that since he had attended a Cobra meeting, "either you were to blame or once again, Westminster was ignoring you and not taking you seriously. Which one is it?"

Rhun ap Iorwerth said the alerts were a UK government responsibility, and that "clearly they didn't get it right" after they were sent to phones in Welsh before arriving in English.

He said Reform's "position on this is to blame the Welsh language, which wasn't at fault".

Millar got a laugh in the chamber when he accused the first minister of hiding away on a beach during the summer break, while back at home his ministers celebrated their first 100 days in power.

Ap Iorwerth had not been available for media appearances for the event.

"While you were sunning yourself on a beach, presumably burying your head in the sand on it on the 100-day anniversary of your government, people in Wales are dying in our hospitals, and young people are not getting the education they need," Millar says.

Image source, Senedd Cymru

Tory Senedd leader Darren Millar attacks the first minister for "plotting the break-up of the United Kingdom".

He then raises the "damning report" into the emergency department of Ysbyty Glan Clwyd.

"It cited patients being left in corridors without food or drink or pain relief, out-of-date medicines and equipment not working and the paediatric area being left unattended while child patients were present," he says.

"So instead of hatching plans to break apart the UK, isn't it time that you focused on your day job and showed some urgency to fixing our NHS instead?"

The first minister says opposition parties are in a "cabal of stagnation" when it comes to "moving Wales forward".

But he says he "absolutely shares the concern" and that his health minister has set out his expectations of improvements to the Betsi Cadwaladr health board.

Image source, Senedd Cymru

Welsh Labour leader Ken Skates claims Rhun ap Iorwerth's memorandum of "disunity" with Sinn Féin and the SNP will only please "people like Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin".

He then turns to pay for health visitors, who at the Senedd today.

Skates says they feel "snubbed" by the Plaid government, and says the party had promised an "end to their dispute over pay" before the election.

He calls on the first minister to use the powers available to resolve the dispute.

Rhun ap Iorwerth says "it's certainly something that I feel is a dispute that we inherited", referring to the fact that Labour was in power until May.

He says it is only something that could be resolved by the health service itself, and calls for a "resolution to happen as swiftly as possible".

Image source, Senedd Cymru

In Dan Thomas' absence, deputy Reform leader Helen Jenner asks the first minister if he "knowingly" misled voters when he said the May 2026 election was not about independence.

She says Plaid has "no mandate" for trying to break up the UK.

"This chamber has a pro-union majority", Jenner says.

The first minister responds saying he has a mandate to pursue "the best for Wales", and says Reform "always thinks Wales is too small".

"Where's the ambition," he says, and refers to Matthew Rhys's Emmy acceptance speech that Wales is a "small but might nation".

"Be more like Matthew," he says.

Image source, Senedd Cymru

There are lively exchanges on the Welsh government's proposal for an energy company.

Reform's Francesca O'Brien claims net zero is behind high energy costs and asks if all forms of energy would be supported by the body.

The first minister says high energy prices are not as a result of a pursuit of net zero. Later, in response to a question from Lib Dem Jane Dodds, Rhun ap Iorwerth says Reform denies climate change.

During the summer recess it was revealed that Wales' performance in international tests for 15-year-olds had fallen further behind other UK nations.

The biggest drop was in maths scores with reading results also lower, while average science scores in the three-yearly Pisa (Programme for International Student Assessment) study were slightly up.

The minister for education and Welsh language, Anna Brychan, said plans were in place to support schools to raise standards.

We could hear more about the fallout today.

Read more here

Image source, Senedd Cymru

FMQs begins and the first minister is now taking questions.

Image source, Getty Images

Dan Thomas is not taking part in Tuesday's first minister's questions for "personal reasons", a party spokesperson says.

No further information has been shared with BBC Wales as to why the party's Welsh leader is not in the debating chamber this afternoon.

Thomas was unveiled as leader by Nigel Farage at an event in Newport in February.

As the leader of the largest opposition party in the Senedd, Thomas gets to ask three questions every week to the first minister.

Helen Jenner, Reform's deputy Welsh leader, is expected to take Thomas' slot in his place.

Image source, Getty Images

Yesterday's meeting of the Welsh, Scottish, and Northern Irish first ministers in Cardiff saw the three leaders - who are all from pro-independence parties - say they believe UK government rule over their nations is coming to an end.

Plaid Cymru has ruled out trying to push for an independence referendum during its first term in government, but Rhun ap Iorwerth told Monday's press conference there was a "growing recognition that Westminster is not working" and "power genuinely needs to be brought closer to people and communities".

He said the May Senedd election in which Plaid came to power gave his government "a mandate for change to make Wales more confident, more prosperous and more in control of its future".

Labour's leader in Wales Ken Skates and Reform UK's Welsh leader Dan Thomas both accused ap Iorwerth of wanting to break up the UK.

And Welsh Conservative Senedd leader Darren Millar said ap Iorwerth "should be focused on dealing with the crisis engulfing the Welsh NHS and the declining standards in Welsh schools".

You can read yesterday's story here

Rhun ap Iorwerth and the rest of the Senedd are returning to Cardiff Bay for the first time since the summer recess.

There could be a lot to get in to. The eight-week summer break saw wildfires blight parts of the country, and Wales fall further behind other UK nations when it came to international school tests.

Today's session also comes a day after the Plaid Cymru first minister invited his counterparts from Sinn Féin and the SNP to Cardiff to mark the fact that Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland now have governments led by pro-independence politicians.

The three parties declared that Westminster's time was coming to an end and that no UK government had a right to "block democracy" - although ap Iorwerth does not want to try to hold an independence referendum until at least 2030.

Opposition parties - including Reform and Labour - attacked Plaid for focusing on independence. It could be one of several topics that may arise during today's session.

We'll bring you all the developments from the Senedd here. You can watch the session live by clicking play at the top of the page from 13:30 BST.