Minister, I'd like to thank you for your statement this morning—or this afternoon—and for bringing forward the further detail on this Bill that you laid yesterday.

I think I need to start by asking you whether or not you can explain to us why you believe we need this legislation. Because, of course, we would all want to support greater quality in our public services, especially with the NHS, because that has such an immediate impact on an individual. And we would all wish to support the principle of candour. However, those two very good aims are of course hiding the dagger that is the eradication of the community health council. The Welsh Conservatives would need to have a very long conversation with you over these coming weeks and months as to whether or not that really would be of benefit to the patient and would really help to reinforce the patient voice.

It's been nine years since 'Together for Health' and it's been four years since our longest-serving health board has been in special measures, yet it's only now that the Welsh Government is bringing forward any form of legislation or thought on how to improve those quality services. And if you say—as you have said in your statement—that the current focus is too narrow, well, Minister, you and your Government have had the best part of a decade to put that right. So why do you think that legislating for it will make the difference, rather than actually the culture change, which is what we really, really need?

In terms of the duty of candour, again, I think that's a very interesting principle. Again, I would want to support that in all walks of life. I have a degree of concern about the establishment of a working group to develop guidance to determine what level of harm must be suffered before the duty is triggered. Where will the patient's voice be on that working group? Because, to be frank, if there's any level of harm, that should be the trigger. And I have a concern from what you've said, from your statement, and from the analysis of the explanatory memorandum, that there's going to be a threshold, there's going to be a bar. Where is that bar, and how high will it be?

I of course now come to community health councils, which is probably the area that gives me the greatest concern. It gives me the greatest concern because everything that you have said as a Government over these last couple of years has been about parliamentary review, has been about the vision for health, has been about empowering the patient. And yet this proposal is basically going to eradicate all of the local community health councils—the boots on the ground, the people who can walk into ward 2 at Glangwili hospital, ward 10 at Withybush Hospital, go into Bronglais, go into any hospital in Wales, and actually have a look. This is going to eradicate the local people who can actually listen to a concern raised by a local resident about the services that they receive. It's going to pop it all into a national, universal organisation—and wahey, that sounds great—but, unfortunately, we have seen this time and time again with Welsh Government, where these national bodies, stretched across the length and the breadth of Wales, simply do not perform what we need them to do. And of all of the things that the Welsh NHS should do, it should be listening to the voice of the patient, because it is a people business and it's about those patients.

So, I have real concern about the comment in your statement about triangulating this with Healthcare Inspectorate Wales, because we know, don't we, that Healthcare Inspectorate Wales has been underfunded. It's still underfunded. It's received less funding than any other Welsh inspectorate—for example £3.5 million compared with £13 million for Care Inspectorate Wales and £11.3 million for Estyn. It is also the only inspectorate body of its kind in the UK that is not fully independent from the Government that it is there to monitor. That's borne out by looking at the Marks review in 2014, where again the Marks review talked about the lack of focus, the focus being too tight and, of course, all these wonderful reports that are reactively produced just disappearing into the ether. And I think that is a real key point, Minister, because, of course, organisations like HIW react to an event. They come in afterwards and start the mopping up. CHCs are very often on the front line and are able to get in there right at the very beginning when a problem first emerges.

So, I'd really like to understand how you see the very weak HIW with very few teeth being able to support your new national body, because opposition stems from the belief that if we lose our independent CHCs we lose the ability to hold our health services to account. And to be frank, the more than obsequious press release that was popped out this morning by the NHS Confederation told me, if nothing else did, that the health boards are jumping up and down with joy, because this is the silencing of a voice. This isn't a re-empowering of a voice.

I do not understand—and I would love it if you could explain to us—why you didn't take the decision to broaden the remit of the current CHCs so that they included social care as well as healthcare, and why you didn't fund them properly, even if you put them in a structure that had more strength given to that umbrella organisation. Because they have done a very good job. I know that throughout Wales it isn't consistent. So, I do buy in to the consistency argument. But when you remember there was a CHC, not very long ago, that was threatened with court for holding its health board to account over a consultation exercise, then that speaks to me of where the power in this really lies. I would like to know—and I have caught your eye, acting Presiding Officer—I would like to know how you are going to ensure that that voice really is independent—independent of you, the Government, independent of you, the Minister, independent of the health boards, and serves the patient. Because that's their one and only job, and we do see these national bodies not doing that and they're subsumed into regional partnerships.