In welcoming the statement from the Cabinet Secretary, can I put on record my acknowledgment of the huge changes and investment that have been made over the last four or five years in Wales that have substantially changed the discussion we have about these issues, as well as some of the co-operative working that we’ve already heard about in the statement? I welcome that.

However, I want to ask him a more fundamental and different question. Because as his statement points out, we are extending life through medical intervention, but, I feel, not always asking a more fundamental question, which is: is this needed or necessary, or does the patient really want it? We demand and expect dignity in life, and in end-of-life care. It is time to discuss whether we should not have the same dignity and rights extended to those who wish to end their lives at a time of their choosing, whether they’re facing a terminal illness or a debilitating condition such as dementia.

Now, currently, this is not a legal position. It’s been challenged regularly by brave individuals who go to the courts in the position of end-of-life terminal disease themselves, to challenge this position. The most recent brave person to do that is Noel Conway, who has just been given the right to challenge to the Court of Appeal. But I acknowledge that the courts have consistently said—and I tend to agree with them—that this is not a matter for the courts, but a matter for Parliament, and a matter for Parliament to decide. So, I wondered, with the election of a new Parliament, and a new Government, whether the Welsh Government does intend to have this conversation with that Westminster Government, because although the powers are not here, they affect each and every one of us in the decisions we’ll be taking about our lives and the lives of our friends and family.

Can I leave him with a quotation from Atul Gawande, who is a Reith lecturer and who wrote a very, very good book on this whole process of dying called ‘Being Mortal’? What he says is this: ‘For many, such talk’—and by ‘such talk’ he means the sort of thing that I’ve just suggested—‘however carefully framed’—I hope I framed it carefully—

‘raises the specter of a society readying itself to sacrifice its sick and aged. But what if the sick and aged are already being sacrificed...and what if there are better approaches, right in front of our eyes, waiting to be recognized?’

Does the Cabinet Secretary recognise that there are some approaches that should be discussed also?