Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:35 pm on 31 January 2018.
It's not as if Ministers are completely free from criticism and questioning of motives and integrity in this place. I think it is important that Members are open and honest with the public and this Chamber about what our views are and where we're going. And that's a standard for all of us to reach to as well.
On your point about where we are now, Simon Thomas, with the proposals that may come in the future, I've said in the past, and I'm being as open and honest as I can be yet again, that I can't set out the position about what proposals are or are not going to be discussed and put forward in the spring, as the health board have indicated. I'd encourage everyone to engage before then and afterwards, and if there are real proposals coming forward, then of course we will look sensibly at what those are. But you know that I can't say today that I will find money or resources for a future decision because that would not be an open and honest conversation, and you're asking me to do something before there is actually a proposal for me to respond to.
I'd remind people—[Interruption.] I'd remind people that not only is there a role for Ministers in this, but we're at the point of actually constructing the Grange University Hospital right now. The structure's going up. It's been a conversation that's taken a number of years following a proposal, and following a range of ways to look at the business case, to get capital ready to do so. I made the choice for the capital case to go ahead at the start of this Assembly term. So, there was a decision there, which I made, and that was after the case had been made and agreed, with buy-in from local public and clinicians about what to do to reconfigure the health system in that part of Wales.
I recognise the invitation to say something completely precipitous at this point, but I won't take up his kind offer to do so.