Of course, broader events in the health area have put this Bill in some kind of context, but as a party we’ve always been doubtful about this Bill because we believe that it is the wrong solution to the wrong problem. We can't support abolishing some of the most effective voices for scrutinising health boards, for example—the CHCs—even if some of them are not as effective as the one that we have in north Wales. We can’t see how pressing ahead with this kind of structural change is going to be worth the effort that would go into that.

And do you know what? Following the publication of the Williams report several years ago, I don’t think that anybody would have guessed that the CHCs would be the first set of organisations to face mandatory mergers, and there is more than a suggestion of doubt here that it's because of their effectiveness in terms of scrutinising the health boards, and therefore the Government, that they’re being abolished. And if I could say this: we don’t want to protect the CHCs forever, not those bodies—we don't see them as something sacred—but it’s the functions of those bodies and what they do, their independence, and we have concerns about what's going to happen to that independence and their genuine ability to be a voice for the communities that they represent.