How many of us have remembered over the past year the importance of saying 'thank you' to those who work so selflessly across the health and care sectors to look after us? How many of us have stopped to think and realise that care doesn't just happen? We're cared for because people—our friends and neighbours, people we grew up with, went to school with—decided to commit their professional lives to caring as nurses and as physios and domiciliary carers and doctors and speech and language therapists, and it's such a long list, I couldn't possibly name them all; a whole host of health professions.

But saying 'thank you' has to be so much more than a passing act. And so, we're here today talking about something that should be a given. It should be a constant: fair financial reward for the commitment, the hard work, the dedication, the graft, and as I said, the sheer selflessness shown by health and care workers at any time, let alone during this extraordinary past COVID year.

Can I say here how pleased I am with the remarkably coincidental announcements earlier today from Welsh Government about (a), making money available to support the continuation of the payment of the real living wage across the NHS—again, something that should be a given; and (b), the funding of a bonus for all NHS and care staff, a net payment of around £500 for most, and of course, I welcome any reward shown for their work. They deserve every penny. But let me be clear that fair financial rewards should be firmly embedded in the culture of our health and care services at all times, and not settled through one-off bonuses. And though grateful for the announcement, there'll be a rather bitter taste left by the fact that this has been done, frankly, because Welsh Government was put in a corner—by a Plaid Cymru Senedd motion, as it happens—and so, felt compelled to do something.