Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I move the amendment tabled in my name. We have a great deal to celebrate in Wales, without doubt, in terms of cancer treatment. There are people surviving today who would not have done so just a few years ago. There is innovative research going on in our universities, but there is so much more to do and so much more room for improvement. Unreasonably long waiting times for diagnostic services are a problem that has existed over many years, and that’s contributed to the fact that cancer survival rates in Wales are lower than the European average. We also know that the picture is at best mixed in terms of end-of-life care, and we do note those two areas as priorities in our brief amendment today.

Although I do agree with much of what’s contained in the amendment tabled by the Labour Government, we cannot support the wording as it currently stands. With Wales at number 28 in a league of 29 European nations, as we’ve already heard, in terms of survival rates, I don’t believe that the Government can truly talk about significant improvement in Wales. Survival rates are improving generally for cancer, and that reflects improvements in treatment and it reflects hard work by doctors and nurses across the whole of Europe. The truth is that here in Wales diagnosis still happens at too late a stage in too many cases and survival rates are lower here than in nations that have far higher rates of smoking.

Of course, we can’t talk about lung cancer without mentioning smoking. It is worth noting here that the interim leader of the party that has tabled this motion today has denied, apparently, this link between smoking and cancer, and has said that doctors have got it wrong. If we so choose, we can choose to ignore those comments and look at them as an effort to garner attention and nothing else, but there’s a very serious point here. The tobacco industry spent decades and spent many millions of pounds denying that their products killed people, similar to what we see with climate change deniers today, as we’ve seen in another example by the party opposite here in the Assembly this afternoon. As a result, the message about smoking and cancer took far longer to permeate the public consciousness and there was far too great a delay until governments took action. The results were that millions of people lost their lives in the interim. It still happens in some nations where the tobacco lobby can still buy influence. So, when a prominent politician makes these kinds of comments, it undermines the efforts to prevent cancer and puts lives at risk. The party opposite should consider that along with its attitude towards scientists and experts more generally.

The number of smokers has declined, of course, and, hopefully, is likely to fall further, but it has taken decades to actually get to this point. If you will forgive me for just a second while I go on something of a tangent, there is a lesson that I think we can learn from that on the issue of obesity and other problems that are often seen as problems that emerge from lifestyles. The lesson is that we can’t simply tell people to change their lifestyles; we have to assist them to do that. Willpower alone is often not enough to enable someone to give up smoking. People need help from patches or, yes, e-cigarettes in order to give up, and other steps, such as higher taxation, bans on smoking in public places in order to denormalise smoking and so on and so forth. Perhaps we should be thinking about obesity in the same way. Willpower simply isn’t enough to tackle obesity—people need help. Governments need to take action.

If I can return to the topic that we’re discussing this afternoon, we should, of course, bear in mind that lung cancer actually does also affect people who don’t smoke and have never smoked. The Conservatives highlight the issue of women specifically in their amendment 2, and we will certainly support that amendment. We will also support amendment 4. Increasing awareness and fighting the stigma that the Conservative spokesperson referred to are things that we must address. Whatever the cause of the disease and whoever suffers from the disease, I hope that each and every one of us would agree that providing the best possible care is always the aim, aiming towards that day when we can say in all earnestness that we have made significant ground in this battle.