Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:15 pm on 8 October 2019.
Llywydd, there's a long history here in Wales of supporting the pharmaceutical industry. If you'd permit me, I'd like to congratulate my old employers at Cardiff University, where the pharmacy department is this week celebrating its centenary, having opened its doors in October 1919. It continues to carry out research and professional training in the pharmacy field. There are many new ways—and very many calls around this Chamber over many years—in which we support the community pharmacy network here in Wales. But we do that because we have our eyes very firmly on the public interest. There is a long call—it was led by Dr Julian Tudor-Hart here in Wales—for Governments to take action, so that the public interest is put to the fore in medicine production. While we are very keen to work with the pharmaceutical industry to support the many good things that it does in Wales, we shouldn't turn our back on the idea that there may be further ways in which the public interest can be pursued in the pharmaceutical field. As a Government, it is always the public interest that guides our actions in investment, in support for the industry and in new possibilities for doing that in the future.