I'm very pleased to take part in this important debate today, recognising how important end-of-life and palliative care is to so many of our population and their families. It has been for quite some time and it will be, obviously, into the future. As with other Members, I'm very familiar with the work of local hospices and the quality and importance of that work, in my case, largely St David's Hospice, which has been providing that end-of-life and palliative care for some 40 years now, working with the national health service.

I've come across that work, for example, in the Light Up a Life services, which I'm sure other Members have attended around Christmas time, when families at services remember their loved ones who benefitted from the care provided by the hospice, and at those services it's very evident how important it is to the families, how emotional they obviously are about the care that was received and the value of it, and the commitment that they feel to the work of the hospice, not just for the care that their family has experienced, but for people in general. And of course they carry out so much private fundraising work as hospices. I'm sure all of us are very familiar with that. Indeed, I run the Newport half marathon every year, which is a fundraiser for the St David's Hospice, and they do an amazing variety of fundraising work. That really is the fund; their services would sit outside mainstream NHS provision.

But of course, a lot of the unmet need that exists is about provision within the mainstream, and that's where I think we do come to the thorny questions of the level of Welsh Government funding, the adequacy of it, and how it might be developed for the future. I do believe that we need to be constructive and look at the models that exist and how we can recognise the ageing population, the unmet need that exists, and make sure that our hospices are fully equipped to play the role that they play better than anyone else in providing this crucial care and service.

One part of that equation is 'Agenda for Change', because I know that hospices are concerned that they haven't had the pay rise, the 2018-19 pay rise that carries on for three years, passported to them from health boards, and obviously that creates real issues for them. There does seem to be a little lack of clarity. I think the health boards' stance, in part at least, is that they make a general contribution to the services within the mainstream provided by hospices, and that then would cover the 'Agenda for Change' pay increase. That's not a view that is shared by hospices, and I wonder whether the Minister might today provide clarity in terms of his understanding of these issues, which, as I say, are very important to hospices right across Wales.

Dirprwy Lywydd, I think there's no shortage of understanding of the value of the work that the hospices carry out. As we've heard already, so many people would prefer to end their lives at home with families, with friends in familiar surroundings, and very many families want their loved ones to end their lives in that way. Hospices provide the vital support, advice and service that enables that to happen, as well as the in-hospice care. So, I think all of us fully realise the value of this care and indeed the challenges coming from the ageing population and unmet need. So, we have to continue, I believe, working together—the NHS, hospices, Welsh Government and other key partners—if we're going to not just continue the care that is so important and valuable, but further develop it for these future challenges.