A number of questions there: first of all, when we look at health, we have to remember that our population is older than the UK average, and generally less well than the UK average. Part of that is the legacy of mining and the legacy of heavy industry, which we’re still dealing with. We intend, of course, to keep on funding health in Wales at a level per head that is higher than in England. The parliamentary review clearly can’t get in the way of decision making. There are difficult decisions that have to be made in health. I’ve been in this Chamber when a decision is made and it’s almost like one of Newton’s laws: there’s an equal and opposite reaction, where there will be opposition to a particular course of action, but quite often that needs to be taken forward. One of the issues that I’m absolutely determined not to see is that people in rural Wales have a worse service than people in urban Wales because they live in rural Wales and because it’s better to have a local service than a specialised service. I’ve never believed that. We’ve seen it in Aberystwyth, for example, where colorectal cancer surgery was moved from Bronglais to Cardiff. The survival rates went up. I know it’s further away but, actually, the outcomes for people were far better. Sometimes, I agree, it is important to have treatment as close as possible, whether it’s with the pharmacy or the GP, or through practice nurses or through the hospitals, but there will be conditions that will need to have very specialised services to give people a better chance and a better outcome. That balance is never an easy one to achieve.

With GPs and the nurses, I mentioned in my speech that it goes beyond the GP workforce, but nurses and other professions as well. What we must avoid doing—yes, we do need to recruit and train more, I follow that, but we need to avoid giving the impression that Wales is not a place that doctors from overseas want to come. We’ve always recruited from other countries. Other countries have always recruited from the UK. It’s an international market. I would not want the impression to be given that the UK is a more difficult place to come to work, because we do rely—and always will rely—on professionals coming in from other countries. The further west you go, in terms of hospitals, the more that reliance can be. So, we must absolutely make sure that we are seen as a welcoming place for medics and nurses to practice in the future.

In terms of some of the other issues that you mentioned, well, it is not correct that 14.3 per cent of people are on a waiting list. There are two points to make there. First of all, you are on a waiting list as soon as you are referred from a GP—that day, almost. So, that’s not a fair comparison, I would argue. Secondly, many of the people are being counted more than once because they are on more than one waiting list. There are issues that we have explored in this Chamber over the past five years, in terms of improving waiting times, but there are issues that are the same across the UK. We know from the Nuffield report that health services across the UK are in a broadly similar position and face similar challenges.

She raises an important point about mental health. We took the decision some years ago to ring-fence mental health spending. CAMHS: it is true to say that the demand outstrips supply very quickly. That is true. That is why we have put more money into CAMHS, in order to make sure that enough resource was going into it, so that there weren’t extraordinarily long waiting times. It proved popular as a service, and being able to catch up was hugely important.

On the ALN Bill, I think that I have already announced that has been confirmed for introduction in this year of the Government’s legislative programme. We are still considering where a piece of autism legislation would go. In terms of the rural model, there’s one thing I disagree with her on. I don’t agree that rural healthcare necessarily costs more than healthcare in Valleys communities. Of course, in many of our upper Valleys communities, people’s state of health is not as good. So, quite often, the costs of looking after them can be higher than people who live in rural Wales. Nevertheless, there are issues in rural Wales that have to be resolved, and the mid-Wales collaborative is a good example of how professionals can work together and with Government to deliver a rural health service. That’s a good example that has worked well and could serve as a good example for the rest of Wales. So, yes, the challenges are there, but we are up for those challenges to deliver the best for people, wherever they live—urban, rural, north, south, east or west.