Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 11:38 am on 8 July 2020.
Well, I agree with Adam Price, Llywydd, that the coronavirus crisis has shone a spotlight onto the sector and the way in which it has been undervalued over so many years. In the end, the challenge is not for Government; it is a challenge for the whole of our society as to the extent to which we are prepared to pay for decent levels of wages and proper working conditions for people in that sector. And Governments successively at the UK level have failed to come forward with proposals for paying for social care. We were very close to it at one point in 2015 as a result of the Dilnot review, and then necessary legislation fell because of a general election, and we've never been able to get back to that.
The Welsh Government directly pays through health boards for NHS staff, and I was very pleased when I was the health Minister to be able to strike a deal that has guaranteed that the lowest paid people in the health service have always been paid, ever since, the real living wage. We are not the employer in relation to this sector. But I want to be positive in my reply to Adam Price's question because I agree with him that the result of coronavirus ought to be that, as a society, we have to be prepared to find the money to make this a sector that recognises the significance of the work that it does every single day.