I think you're right to point out the catastrophic fall that has taken place already in nurses from the European Union and wider economic area working here in the United Kingdom. It largely affects England at present, but that's the point: at present. We can't pretend that if this continues, if we don't have a greater deal of sense in the way that our future arrangements work, that we will not be adversely affected here as well.

For all that we wish to do, and we're committed to do, to increase the nursing workforce here—I think there's been a 67 per cent increase in nurse training in the last five years or so, so we're putting our money where our mouth is in training the next generation; and the bursary as well is keeping people here in Wales, is keeping people within the NHS here in Wales after they've completed their training—there'll be an even greater imperative to do so if we end up with no deal, because our ability to recruit European Union based nurses will have been made even more difficult.

I find it really striking that when you go to meet representatives of nurses, whether they're in Unison, the Royal College of Nursing or other trade unions, they're genuinely worried about the prospects for their profession's future if we leave. They see colleagues who are already openly talking about not being welcome and who are thinking that they're going to leave because they're worried about future arrangements.

In England, part of the response has been to change some of the roles. They're bringing in a new grade that they're calling nurses associates. The chief nursing officers outside England think that that is role substitution, and that what they're really doing is trying to take off duties that could and should be undertaken by registered nurses, to be undertaken by people who are not at that professional grade. We have a different answer. We have a proper network of healthcare support workers—someone in this room helped to negotiate that framework for them to have a proper career path as well. We need to continue to do it, to develop our own workforce here, but I couldn't honestly say to anyone in this room from any party that if we leave the European Union with no deal that we'll be able to avoid the consequences of that in terms of our workforce and who we have. It will involve the money that we spend—that we're prepared to spend—and, frankly, the jobs that our people are prepared to undertake within the wider health and social care field.

So, the risks are real. No-one should ignore them. They should recognise that without a proper deal, we will have to face those awful consequences and even more difficult choices.