First of all, can I say that I welcome the statement from the Cabinet Secretary today? Breaking it up into two parts, on IPFR, quite simply, we welcome the independent review of IPFR and, in particular, the examination of exceptionality. We, as I know the Cabinet Secretary is aware, think that this is core to this issue. This is, of course, a review that has been won by Plaid Cymru for the people of Wales as a result of the post-election compact, and we certainly look forward to the review getting under way.

We would urge all people who have been affected by IPFR issues to feed into this review, and it would be interesting to know what plans the Minister has to publicise the review when it gets under way.

On the independence of the review, yes, it’s important that there is input from the Welsh NHS into the review, but I would welcome assurance from the Cabinet Secretary that the chair will be independent of the Welsh NHS.

On the new treatment fund, I’m certainly—and we in Plaid Cymru are certainly glad that the Government now recognise that this is a problem that needs addressing. It is important, though, to recognise here that LHBs have been under a legal obligation to make NICE or All Wales Medicines Strategy Group-approved treatments available to eligible patients for several years, with ministerial directions to boards specifically stating this. Does the Minister, therefore, accept that the failure of LHBs in many cases to abide by these guidelines is a failure of health governance and a failure of delivery?

Linked to this, I am aware of cases where patients have been wrongly told that a treatment has not been approved for general use when, actually, it has, including one case in particular where a patient had to present the actual NICE judgment and the ministerial direction on access to approved treatments to her consultant in order to get a change of heart. So, what steps are you going to take to ensure that clinicians are kept up to date on NICE guidelines as, quite clearly, not every patient is going to be able to be assertive and knowledgeable enough about the system, and people, perhaps, will not be getting treatments as a result of this?

Finally, I move to funding. You say you will make £80 million available over the life of this Government to ensure new medicines are available. To break it into a five-year term, that’s £16 million a year. We had been suggesting that money should be ring-fenced from the pharmaceutical price reduction scheme—£55 million a year—and, yes, that was perhaps more than was necessary, but £16 million appears small. How confident does the Minister feel that the budget allocated will allow the Government to meet its desired outcomes? You also said that a new treatment fund will meet the costs of these new medicines for a maximum of 12 months, giving health boards the time to plan and prioritise funding from within their budgets thereafter. How can we be sure that the cost of these new medicines will be brought within budgets within 12 months and what is the enforcement mechanism that you’re proposing if they don’t? We welcome these announcements, but they are only as good as budgets allocated and the process and the processes used to deliver the principle.