Thank you, Llywydd. At the outset here I should say, as I've already said in the past on a number of occasions, that as a GP I have in the past paid indemnities, but I have no direct interest in this Bill before us today.

Now the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee considered the Bill in its meeting of 23 October of this year. And as part of this, we heard evidence from the Minister, the Medical Defence Union, and the Medical and Dental Defence Union of Scotland. We had no further opportunities to take oral evidence because the timetable for scrutinising the Bill had been curtailed. This timetable also limited the opportunities available to the committee to invite and consider written evidence.

I think it's worth putting on record the committee’s view that the use of a curtailed procedure for legislation does not allow for robust examination of the evidence, not least because it limits the opportunities for meaningful engagement with those affected by the Bill. I hope the Minister will take note of that.  

I now wish to move on to consider the Bill itself. Arrangements are in progress in England to transfer historic clinical negligence liabilities for GPs from private indemnity providers to the state, as we've already heard. As a committee, we felt it was important to ensure that GPs practising in Wales would not be disadvantaged compared to their colleagues in England as a result of this policy decision. We were satisfied that the Bill was necessary in order to guard against this, and for this reason, the committee recommended that the Assembly agrees the general principles of this Bill.

However, we were keen to ensure that any state-backed scheme would not provide less protection or support to GPs than they currently enjoy as part of their membership of a private indemnity provider. We heard from the medical defence organisations that they defend robustly the professional standing of any doctor concerned in a negligence claim, and that they also provide additional support to that doctor during the course of the claim.

We recommended that the Minister gives a commitment today that this level of protection and support will continue to be provided to GPs under any future state-backed scheme, and I do welcome the comments already made by the Minister on the importance of the exact level of commitment required in the future, compared to what medics have enjoyed in the past.

In turning now to the cost of the Bill and asset transfer, as part of our work on the Bill, we considered the costs and liabilities to be assumed by the Welsh Government. The Minister has estimated that the liabilities for the Welsh Government under this Bill will be in the region of £100 million, subject to successful negotiation and agreement with the three medical defence organisations.

We note that the Welsh Government has recently reached agreement on asset transfer with one of the three medical defence organisations—the Medical Protection Society, the MPS—and is close to agreement with one other. But it was very disappointing to hear that there had been no progress with the third organisation, the MDU. In fact, the MDU told us that the Welsh Government had failed to engage in any meaningful discussions with it on this matter.

As a committee, we felt that the effective operation of any state-backed scheme relies on reaching agreement with all three medical defence organisations about the levels of asset transfer. As such, we recommended that the Welsh Government must engage in meaningful discussions with the MDU to reach agreement on asset transfer, and that the level of this transfer must represent a fair and proportionate settlement in terms of indemnifying GPs and delivering value for money. I again listened to the comments made by the Minister on this point and I welcome any progress in discussion with the MDU, and I do urge the Minister to have those discussions in a meaningful manner and to reach agreement with the MDU, MDDUS and MPS as the three main organisations that defend doctors.

In terms of the broader points on wider law reform, briefly, Llywydd, the committee heard evidence of the need for wider reform to the tort laws in place in England and Wales. As in England, the Minister, through this Bill, is attempting to mitigate the impact of the rising costs of clinical negligence and thereby deal with some of the issues around the recruitment and retention of GPs. However, the Bill does not address the root causes of rising negligence costs and the associated pressures on NHS finances. There are a number of factors, such as why use the cost of private treatment in the courts as a basis for compensation to a patient? Does it make sense for the NHS to have an opportunity to provide redress for what went wrong in the first place, as some of our witnesses mentioned? As a committee, we believe that there are benefits to an examination of the law in this area, and this is something the Welsh Government should pursue with its UK counterparts. I look forward to hearing the Minister's response. Thank you.