Thank you for your statement, Cabinet Secretary. Are you concerned to know how a maternity service suddenly discovers that it's 15 midwives short? At what point did they find out they were 15 midwives short? A dedicated and hardworking staff, behind whom you will no doubt hide today, must have been sounding the alarm about staff shortages and their consequences for a long time; they mustn't have been listened to. The Cabinet Secretary has said that it's a very difficult time for staff; I'd suggest that's an understatement. There can be nothing more distressing for a healthcare professional to see patients, in particular babies, dying because of institutional failings they are powerless to do anything about. That things work well for the majority of families in Wales is no comfort to bereaved families, and my heart really, really does go out to those families who have been bereaved because of those failings.

However, it does display the typical complacency with which the Cabinet Secretary for health responds to failures in the health service for which he is responsible. Fifteen must be quite a large percentage of the midwifery staff. Can the Cabinet Secretary tell us why Cwm Taf health board thought they could get away with so few midwives before this situation came about? Is the Cabinet Secretary concerned that when he talks about a peer review that this board's peers are also failing to provide good care and outcomes for their patients? This Government has run the NHS into the ground and there is poor delivery in Labour's NHS everywhere you look. Where would the Cabinet Secretary suggest they turn for decent peer reviewing and should we not be concerned that an NHS board trusts its own judgment so little that they're going to ask other trusts for a second opinion? Shouldn't they know what makes a good and safe service and what doesn't?

The report makes mention of what they're going to do—hire a new doctor and a number of other staff—but it doesn't allude to what they think has actually gone wrong so far. So, what exactly led to 43 baby deaths in 2016? I think everybody deserves to know. Does the Cabinet Secretary think that the public forced to use these services should have a bit more of a handle on what has gone wrong so far? If the board believes that the employment of 15 more midwives and an additional mid-range doctor and certain other roles will help solve the problem, they must think they know something about how the problems have been created in the first place. If they can't or won't tell us how this awful situation has arisen, what comfort can we take from their current proposals to try and fix it? The hospital statement only says that they will share their findings of what went wrong with the families involved. Will the Cabinet Secretary now undertake, in the interest of future patient safety, to share all the findings with this place?

Many people say and believe that the NHS is above party politics and there is some merit to that, so I would hope that the Cabinet Secretary would not hide any of the findings to reduce his party's political embarrassment over this matter. Will the Cabinet Secretary give us that assurance? 

The Cabinet Secretary has ordered a review into the health board but we can't take any comfort from the Cabinet Secretary's promises and assurances, can we, because even when this Government takes direct control of a board, as you have with Betsi Cadwaladr, this Government sometimes manages to make things even worse? So, will the Cabinet Secretary tell this Assembly what he will do to ensure that, unlike the cases seen so far, the treatment of patients won't get even worse once his Government gets involved? We heard recently that Betsi Cadwaladr has not learnt lessons from the complaints and multiple reviews into failings there. So, what assurance can pregnant women and healthcare professionals in the service take from the statement made by the Cabinet Secretary today that there will be improvements? Not much, I'd suggest. I'll end my comments there.