Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and thank you very much to the Deputy Minister for her statement this afternoon. I can’t think of a better way to highlight Carers Week than to discuss the support that we give to unpaid carers in Wales. As someone who’s spent their last 11 years working in the NHS and in close partnership with social services, I know first hand that without unpaid carers our health and care system would simply collapse.

While I welcome the additional moneys from the Welsh Government being allocated to fund respite care in Wales, I’m afraid it’s a mere drop in the ocean. Wales has more than a small army of unpaid carers, and they outnumber the British army by 3:1. It is estimated that over a third of a million unpaid carers in Wales save the NHS around £8 billion per year. According to new research by Carers UK, nearly three quarters of Wales's carers have not had a break since the start of the pandemic.

Deputy Minister, do you support my party's pledge that all unpaid carers will receive respite? Does the Welsh Government believe that the £1.75 million allocated to the first phase will be sufficient to meet the needs of Wales's unpaid carers? Will you provide a breakdown on how the moneys will be allocated to each of the 22 local authorities in Wales? I don't expect you to provide that today, obviously, but perhaps you could provide further details to the Senedd in a written statement in the future.

I'm interested in your comments on respite—respitality. I'll put my teeth back in. What discussions have your officials had with the hospitality sector in Wales? Given the losses experienced by Wales's hospitality businesses over the last 15 months, do you believe that this will have any impact on your ability to get the scheme up and running across the nation? Have you discussed the operation of the Scottish scheme with your counterpart in the Scottish Parliament, and have you discussed with the UK Government the potential for a UK-wide scheme?

Moving on to your Government's wider support for unpaid carers, while I welcome the new strategy for unpaid carers, it's disappointing that the delivery plan won't be ready until the end of this year. Unpaid carers need help and support now, not a series of new reports and strategies. My party wants to see unpaid carers given free access to training and ensure that every single carer in Wales receives the carer assessment to which they are entitled. Deputy Minister, do you agree with me that more must be done to support our unpaid carers? What plans does the Welsh Government have to offer training courses to unpaid carers in Wales? Have you discussed with Social Care Wales and Health Education and Improvement Wales the ways in which unpaid carers can train alongside paid carers?

And finally, Deputy Minister, how are you working with Welsh local authorities to ensure that they are providing carer assessments to every carer in Wales? I look forward to working with you over the coming term to ensure that we can truly support our vast army of unpaid carers. Diolch yn fawr iawn.