Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'm delighted to be able to open the Welsh Conservative debate tabled in the name of my colleague Paul Davies. You'll see from our motion on the order paper that it can be taken in four separate points. We pay tribute to the staff, we note the Welsh Government's decision to place the health board into special measures, but we believe that those special measures have failed and we're calling on the Welsh Government to take forward some action.

We've chosen to focus on Betsi Cadwaladr because it is our largest health board, and it has been in special measures for the longest of time and I would like to start, before I do anything else, my contribution by paying tribute to the hard work that the staff, the NHS staff in Betsi Cadwaladr undertake. They're operating in a very difficult environment with straitened resources and increasing pressure, and if it wasn't for these dedicated, overstretched and often under-appreciated staff, then the situation would be far worse than it currently is. I've visited a number of hospitals in the Betsi region, and I've always left impressed by and grateful for the work of the staff and the staff themselves. 

We should remind ourselves briefly of the scale of the challenge, because the Betsi Cadwaladr university health board is the largest in Wales and provides services for close to 700,000 people and employs some 16,500. The size of the board's estate is massive—