Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:55 pm on 26 November 2019.
Yes. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and thank you to Members who have contributed in today's debate, but, more than that, as I say, to the ongoing scrutiny process over a period of time.
I should start, perhaps, with the comments made by the Plaid Cymru spokesperson in indicting that their whole group had changed their mind post the committee's report. That's obviously disappointing, but you're allowed to change your mind and take a different position and cast a vote in that way. I don't agree with her comments that the Bill is inadequate or potching around the edges—I think this will make a substantive and material step forward for health and social services.
In terms of some of the points made by a number of Members about community health councils, I should just point out that I don't think it's helpful for the community health council movement to talk about one community health council that should be saved. That's almost damning everyone else with faint praise or absence, and it's also worth noting—[Interruption.] It's also worth noting that the current community health councils are hosted by Powys Teaching Health Board. The suggestion that moving them to a position where the entire board goes through an independent public appointments process, that that somehow lessens their independence, is not one that I think stands up to the evidence.
I'll take the intervention, but I will need it to be brief.