Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and thank you, Minister, for your statement. I'm very pleased to see that there's been some increase in GP recruitment over the past 18 months or so, but I have to say it is a case of too little too late. We have known for a very long time that we have had significant shortages of individuals coming into the GP workforce and, in fact, the unions and the Royal College of General Practitioners were warning as much as a decade ago that we were not training sufficient numbers of people to replace those who were leaving the profession due to retirement. Whilst I commend the efforts that are being made belatedly by the Welsh Government and I'm pleased to see that there are some increases, I still don't think it's going to be sufficient to be able to plug the gap that's been caused by those who are leaving the profession at the moment.

Of course, the 'Train. Live. Work.' campaign, which is a commendable campaign, is responsible for securing some of these increases in interest in coming to live and work as a GP here in Wales, yet you fail to recognise the significant damage that has been done to that campaign as a result of your announcement yesterday, on April fool's day, of all days, in relation to the GP indemnity package, which you have decided to launch unilaterally without the agreement of the GP workforce. Because we know that that GP workforce is very, very unhappy indeed with what you are proposing. You're proposing, of course, to top-slice from the general medical services contract the £11 million or so that you need to be able to fund this indemnity scheme, at a time when GPs over the border in England are getting increases in the funding that is available to them in their surgeries.

Now, this is isn't me that's saying these things. This is stuff that can be visible for everybody to see on social media, including from Dr Dylan Parry, one of my own constituents, a GP in Old Colwyn, who fronted the 'Train. Work. Live.' campaign, who's now saying he feels as though he is sort of selling a false story about the hope and the goodness that can come from relocating to Wales. And I don't want him to be in that position. I want him to be able to sell Wales as a place to come to live and work, with your family, and to be a GP and to have a successful career in the NHS. But this indemnity insurance scheme, which you announced yesterday, without the backing of most GPs or their representative bodies in Wales, I think, is very, very shameful indeed. You're reducing the amount of funding that is available for GP practices here in Wales. It's going to have a significant impact, particularly on those practices that are just about managing at the moment, and I would urge you as a Welsh Government to reconsider your position on this, to get back to the discussions with the BMA and the Royal College of General Practitioners and others, in order that we can resolve this in a satisfactory way, which is fair to GP practices across Wales and doesn't penalise them for the fact that they've been trying to work with you in order to secure the right results.  

And I would just remind you about the current state of play in terms of GP practices. Between October 2015 and January 2019, we saw 24 GP practices close across Wales. We saw 29 enter into management by their local health boards because GPs gave the keys back, effectively, to their practices. We're told by the BMA that, according to their heat map, there are 85 practices that are at risk of closure. Now, your announcements on indemnity insurance yesterday are going to tip even more into those situations, and more and more patients are going to have their GP services impacted as a result.

Now, you referred to the increase, Minister, in the number of GP training places. Can you explain to the National Assembly and to the medical committees across Wales why it is that eligible individuals who want to come and live and work and be trained in Wales, which is what the aspirations of your campaign are, are being turned away when they actually make applications? Why is it that 50 per cent of eligible applicants in north Wales, for example, in the last two years have been turned away at a time when GP practices are closing the doors because they cannot recruit? Why is it that you haven't found sufficient capacity within the system to help to train sufficient numbers for the needs of our national health service? And when can we expect you to ramp up those training places in order that it can be more attractive to come to train, live and work here in Wales?

I could go on with more and more statistics, but I'm not going to. What I will simply do is this, Minister, and this is my parting plea: listen to the voice of GPs. They're very unhappy at the moment. They're warning of an exodus from Wales into other parts of the UK, particularly to England from border parts of our country, because of this indemnity scheme that you have announced yesterday. Think it through. You're doing the wrong thing, and you need to back up now.