Lifting this pay cap has been long awaited by all political parties, and we wholeheartedly welcome this announcement, which gives recognition to the front-line staff who work tirelessly to deliver world-class services. From today, staff such as nurses, porters and paramedics will receive an average 6.5 per cent increase in their pay packets over the next few years, with many of the lowest paid workers in the health service receiving the largest increases in their pay, which will certainly help us to promote our equality and fairness agendas. Along with yesterday's announcement, you will know that the UK Government are going to establish five new medical schools in parts of the country.

England is not alone in facing these recruitment challenges, and what they're doing will really help to make their health service more resilient. In Wales we spend almost £14 million a month on agency staff, and have seen the equivalent of one nurse a day leave our health service. Health services cannot run the risk of losing more of our exceptional front-line staff, or our newly trained students.

Now, we know that you, the Welsh Government, will receive consequential funding from the Treasury to mitigate this increase, so Welsh Government will get the normal share of an extra £4.2 billion for the NHS pay changes over the next three years. Will you please confirm that you will actually put the consequential to the pay awards here in Wales? And could I also ask you whether or not you will be considering the fact that the pay deal so far is looking at how the deal can reduce the high rates of sickness that we see in the NHS across the United Kingdom? It's not just in Wales. We lose over 900 full-time years to sickness every year, and if we can get these people back into work more quickly and incentivise them and perhaps give them priority treatment, then that in itself will help to alleviate some of the human resource pressure we find in our NHS here. We all welcome the lifting of this pay cap, but I do want to hear what you're going to be able to do with this consequential and whether you'll be applying it to our staff.