Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. In moving this motion today, I wish to start by expressing how grateful we are to the staff of the NHS. From front-line medics to back-room managers, they've held the line and delivered care and support to many individuals and families during this dreadful time. Without doubt, the NHS has been put under immense pressure by COVID, but the truth is that the NHS was under immense pressure before the pandemic. There needs to be not only a route out of the current situation, but to look and to ensure that the Welsh NHS is both well resourced and truly enabled, because the NHS needs more trained professionals and the freedom to innovate, it needs investment in primary care, strengthened secondary care, better IT and a plan for social care and mental health, and we need to be able to slash those horrendous waiting times.

I don't underestimate the uphill battle this will be. Let us remember that the Welsh NHS was in a weak and vulnerable position before COVID-19, as a result of poor decision making over the last 20 years by a succession of moribund Labour and Labour-Liberal and Labour-Plaid Governments. One such area that was badly affected is recruitment. The workforce is the backbone of the NHS, but Welsh Government has relied on goodwill, overtime and agencies to plug staff shortages, rather than implement a proper workforce strategy. According to the Royal College of Nursing, there is an estimated absolute minimum of 1,612 nursing vacancies, let alone doctors, physios, speech and language therapists, occupational therapists and mental health specialists. In 2019, Welsh Government commissioned a health and social care workforce strategy, two years later, where is it? Nowhere. In order to fund an increase in workforce, the NHS must be properly funded. Yet, the Welsh Labour Government holds the dubious honour of being the only Government in the UK to ever cut the NHS budget in modern times by some £800 million. They've also underfunded the social care system and allowed an unforgivable fragility to develop in the sector. Welsh Government expects older people to pay twice for care by looking to introduce an age-related social care tax, both unfair and ageist.

And let's turn to waiting times, terrible before the pandemic, horrendous now. Before the pandemic, waiting times had trebled for those waiting more than 36 weeks for treatment. Before the pandemic, the Welsh Government failed to meet its own target times for treatment. Before the pandemic, the 95 per cent target for patients spending fewer than four hours in A&E had never been met. Before the pandemic, cancer waiting times had not been met for a decade. Before the pandemic, the target of patients waiting fewer than 26 weeks for treatment hadn't been met for 10 years. Before the pandemic, the target for patients waiting fewer than—.

Sorry, you've disappeared, Dirprwy Lywydd. I don't know if you've lost me. My apologies, the Deputy Presiding Officer disappeared, so I thought perhaps I had disappeared. You may wish I had, but unfortunately, Minister, I'm still here.