Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:14 pm on 16 May 2018.
Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'm happy to respond to today's debate, opened by Hefin David, and happy to note that the Government will support the motion. But, in particular, I want to start by recognising the direct human impact and the experiences of people who are not just taking part in this debate today, but are outside watching, or will look at it afterwards—not just about the direct impact here of people who worked with or knew Sam Gould, or those of us who know Steffan Lewis, but, as Hefin David and Mark Isherwood indicated, people that we will ourselves have known who have had bowel cancer.
We also welcome the report from Bowel Cancer UK and Beating Bowel Cancer. We actually have a good relationship with the Wales cancer charities, who I meet on a regular basis. In fact, I last met the Wales Cancer Alliance on 19 April and we discussed that report at that meeting and with several of the NHS's leadership groups, including the cancer implementation group and the endoscopy implementation group. What isn't in doubt is the importance of improving bowel cancer outcomes and equally the scale of the challenge facing our services. We remain absolutely committed to improving cancer outcomes. That's evidenced in our updated cancer delivery plan, which we published in November 2016, and that plan recognises the importance of early detection, a point made by a number of Members in today's debate.