I move the amendment in the name of Paul Davies.

When I raised NHS work planning two weeks ago at First Minister’s questions, I questioned why, after 20 years of Labour running Wales, there are still Welsh Government reports that say substantial work is needed for medical recruitment and retention to be fit for purpose. The First Minister didn’t answer me then, and the Cabinet Secretary can say he’s only been in post a year, but Labour can’t say that they haven’t had time to implement a plan. They’ve been in charge of Wales for 20 years. Powers were devolved by Labour to Labour. It is Labour in Wales that decided to prioritise their friends in local government instead of the NHS, and there’s therefore no-one to blame for gaps in the Welsh NHS except for Labour.

Despite that, they’ll no doubt try and blame the Conservatives at Westminster, yet the youngest Welsh-trained doctor or nurse, for whose training the Conservative Party would be responsible, is now 38 years old. It’s Welsh Government who must answer for why 187 more doctors and 287 more nurses have left the Welsh NHS in the last 10 months than have joined it. It’s not enough for the Government just to note, in its amendment, shortage of health professionals. They need to accept they are responsible.

For the first four years of the Assembly, the Welsh Government was directly responsible for NHS workforce planning. Since then, they’ve tried a variety of approaches and structures with an alphabet soup of different bodies that have been involved. I really hope that the approach now proposed by the health Cabinet Secretary of a special health authority for workforce planning is more successful than what went before.

I’ve three questions I specifically want to put to him if he is able to address at the end of the debate about those plans. The first: when push comes to shove, will the special health authority really be independent or will it do what it’s told by the Cabinet Secretary? The second: how will the Cabinet Secretary ensure that the special health authority has the confidence of those who work in the NHS? Why is it, given the Mel Evans and Professor Williams reports, that there is such concern? I accept what he said earlier—that it will not be a representative body—but does he understand the extent of the concern, not least from Royal College of Nursing, about this, which is referred to in our amendment? And what will he do to meet those concerns? Finally, how will we know, at the end of the Assembly term, whether NHS workforce planning is working? And will he accept responsibility if it’s not?