We’ve had many debates in this Chamber over the years on mental health, and I think, obviously, it’s been a challenge for us to discuss this, but more of a challenge for people to be able to deliver services in this area, and to speak about personal experiences, as many have in this room today.

Usually, I start off by speaking about the rights and the protection of the sufferers, but today I just want to tell you a small story about someone who is employed in the mental health service in south Wales who spoke to me over the weekend. She’s an administrator working for a centre for mental health in my region, and she’s not trained in mental health at all. In fact, she’s requested on numerous occasions to be trained up so that when she sees somebody coming through the door, she can know and she can deal with it. She’s had an experience three or four times where one gentleman has rung her telling her that he is stabbing himself physically in his stomach because he doesn’t want to live anymore, and asking how she can help him. Sometimes she can’t refer on to a doctor, because the doctor is seeing somebody else in the clinic and she has told me, ‘I am scared because I have no qualifications, but I am dealing with this man. What if he actually kills himself while doing this? Because the next time, he will die, and I will not be able to save him.’ I think hearing stories like that—. Statistics are important, but when she told me that I just thought, this woman, who’s on the lowest pay grade in the whole of the NHS in that area, is having to deal with such a traumatic experience, and she has to take that back to her family every single night. I think that’s something that we should all remember in this discussion.

Of course, I want to discuss employers also. I think it’s important we discuss this in relation to how we can protect employers in Wales. It’s not a nationalistic propaganda discussion. It’s about how, because of the Brexit vote, we can protect workers in our NHS situations, in our public sector work, when they are rolling back on those very workers’ rights that the Labour Party advocated in the first place. If we do not want those powers here, and we want the Conservatives in Westminster to rule over those powers, then why are we in politics? I want those powers here so that we can protect the people who work within our environment and make sure that they are safe working in such environments.

We’ve talked here today about employers who, potentially, have refused or will not employ people with mental health problems. I think the stigma is still there, even though I and Llyr and others, and David Melding, have spoken out. I’ve had messages from people saying to me, ‘Well, it’s great that you’ve done that, Bethan, but I still will not tell my employer that I suffer with either bipolar or depression, because I know that if I go into work tomorrow they will look at me differently and they will see me differently, and will think that, by virtue of the fact that I have that depression labelled on me, I will not be able to do my work.’ I think that’s still a massive challenge for the Welsh Government to be able to deal with.

What I’m passionate about also is about having more self-esteem and confidence lessons in schools. I’m not necessarily saying we should have mental health lessons, because that may be a danger in and of itself, where we would tell somebody about a condition and they may feel nervous around knowing more about that condition at such a young age. So, that’s why, over the years, I had a meeting with Jane Hutt, when Jane Hutt was the education Minister, about trying to have those well-being lessons in schools so that people, young girls especially, can have the confidence to go out there and not just believe that they are a sexual object walking down the street, with the adverts on display boards, and that they’re going to be objectified for the rest of their lives, and to have that difficulty to empower themselves when they do grow up to be women in this society.

I think I’ll finish by saying that it’s very important that we have these debates, but I think it’s much more important that we see action now. Services are struggling and schools have counselling services that are creaking at the seams. We need to take our rhetoric out of this Chamber and make sure that we all campaign in our respective areas to make sure that we end the stigma and also talk to people in a positive way about why their mental illness does not define them. Some people may never be able to totally—. Like a physical illness, it may be able to be treated and be gone forever, but sometimes it will stay with you. That shouldn’t be seen as a bad thing and it shouldn’t define who you are as a person. It should be just part of a bigger picture as to who that person is. I hope that’s what we can leave this Chamber today thinking about. Diolch yn fawr.