Diolch, Llywydd, and can I, first of all, start by thanking those NHS heroes and heroines across Wales who are working so hard at the moment during this pandemic, and have been caring for patients so well, and indeed have been doing so well in terms of rolling out the coronavirus vaccination programme? It's been a delight to see the NHS in action, with our staff stepping up to the plate and doing what we know they will always do in times of crisis.

I have to say that Angela Burns hit the nail on the head when she opened this debate in making it absolutely clear that the problems in the NHS here in Wales that we have at the moment are not a new phenomenon. These are long-rooted problems that have been with us for some time in terms of people waiting far too long for tests and treatment, with waiting-time targets not met for over a decade on almost every measure. And I think it's a bit rich, frankly, of the health Minister to take a pop at the Conservatives for pointing out the fact that it's your failure, as a Government, to get to grips with the recruitment crisis that we've had in our NHS. You've been in charge of it for 20 years, and we still have a shortage of nurses, a shortage of doctors, a shortage of all sorts of other health professionals.

You made reference to the UK Government's role. Well, I'll point out the fact to you, Mr Gething, that the UK Government has made billions available for our NHS, with huge spending commitments going forward over the next few years, more than sufficient to be able to address some of the challenges that you have outlined. And I will remind you and Members of this Senedd and the public once again: no Conservative Prime Minister has ever cut a national health service budget. Only the Labour Party, the Labour Government in Wales, has been responsible for cutting an NHS budget in the past. And not only was that supported by Labour Members of the Senedd, but of course it was also supported by their little helpers in Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats at the time when it was imposed. And I would ask people to very carefully consider these facts when they head to the polls in May, because I'm afraid that, unless there is regime change in this nation for the sake of our national health service, it will continue to go backwards.

For political reasons, you withdrew the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board from special measures. But, as Janet Finch-Saunders quite rightly pointed out, the public in north Wales will not be hoodwinked. Basically, the same material problems are still prevalent in that health board, as identified in your targeted intervention statement just recently, that were there six years ago. So, there's been very, very little progress, and in fact the only bits of progress that have been made have been because tens of thousands of people marched on the streets in north Wales and signed petitions in order to overturn some of the decisions that were being made by the health board that had an adverse impact, or would have had an adverse impact, on patient care here in north Wales.

Now, we're in a very serious situation. We have over 0.5 million people in Wales—that's one in five of the adult population—that are currently on an NHS waiting list. We have to have a plan to put that right. Just weeks ago, Mr Gething, you said it was foolish to set out a recovery plan. 'Foolish' was the word that you used. Well, I'm sorry, it's not foolish to have a strategy in order to claw this situation back, for the sake of people across this country who are living in pain, some of whom are coming to harm, with irreversible damage being done to their health as a result of languishing on these waiting lists. And I would remind you that, in north Wales, even prior to the pandemic, the typical wait for somebody being referred in February of last year for an orthopaedic operation was two years until they were due their treatment. Now, unless you've got a plan to sort that situation out, because it's now approaching three years for many of them, then, I'm sorry, you don't deserve to get any support, frankly, in the forthcoming elections.

So, I would encourage Members of this Chamber today to support our motion, to reject, I'm afraid to say, Mark Reckless's amendment, which blames the failures of the Welsh NHS on devolution. They are not the failures of devolution, they are the failures of the Welsh Labour Party in terms of their management of our national health service and their stewardship in recent years, Mark Reckless.

I recognise very much the points that Caroline Jones made about recruitment, but we will not be, I'm afraid, supporting your amendment today, because, unfortunately, it deletes some other important parts of our motion.

And we will also not be supporting the points made by Rhun ap Iorwerth in terms of the need for a merger of the NHS and social care in Wales. The very last thing that our national health service needs at the moment is another reorganisation, and that's what Plaid Cymru is proposing. That would be a massive distraction in terms of trying to deal with some of these systemic problems. And I'm afraid that in the only part of the UK where we have got these merged boards, which, of course, is in Northern Ireland, the performance in many respects has been even worse than it has been in Wales. So, that's not the answer, and it's certainly not the answer to divert money that should be spent on hospitals and healthcare into sports halls.

So, I'm afraid we've set out our stall: we believe that you need to set out a clear recovery plan to clear that backlog, to recruit more health professionals and to transform mental health care here in Wales. I urge people to support our motion.