Thank you very much. This is an interesting debate, a first opportunity to scrutinise the winter plan. Unfortunately, we have no winter plan to scrutinise as of yet. I do appreciate the short briefing that was made available earlier today to members of the health committee on some of the principles underpinning the plan. I appreciate having a preview from the Minister today of some of those principles, but, in a way, this session is posing more questions than it's answering. There is talk about access to primary care and making mental health central to services, but the question we want answers to is how is that going to be done, that's what we'd hope for in the report itself and hope for in the report on Thursday.

There are many principles and elements that I welcome, some of them that I outlined as things that I would want to see in a session a fortnight ago, asking for improved signposting so that people get the right care in the right place, and the Minister has said that that is going to be a priority. I know that the BMA today has highlighted some research that suggests that only around 10 per cent of people were aware of the Government's Choose Well programme in 2018, so, obviously, we need a lot more investment in that kind of work. And again, I'm looking forward to having more detail on that on Thursday, hopefully, and I would appeal to the Minister to ensure that time is made available in Government time after half term so that we can scrutinise and ask questions in light of the publication of the report itself.

There are questions that I can pose today, particularly around the fact that, as the Minister said, COVID and the pandemic are the context to this winter still. I was critical last week in hearing the Minister say that we are in a period of stability in terms of the pandemic. There is a risk, of course, that 'stability' is seen as being something positive, but the figures are frighteningly high in Wales, as the Minister will know, and we need to bring those figures down. Amongst schoolchildren, there is huge concern being voiced to me by people from all parts of Wales, and I would like to hear from the Minister this afternoon what urgent steps are being taken now to try to bring cases down within schools. 

And, following on from the question from the Conservative spokesperson, I do think we need more information as to the strategy of the booster programme. We heard the Minister say that we'll get more figures on Thursday, but will we have an update on a change of strategy or a gear-shift, perhaps? Because we might be suffering here from having had an early and successful vaccination programme, so the period of a decline in the effectiveness of the vaccination is hitting more swiftly than it is in the rest of Europe. And that means that we need to rush forward with the booster programme. So, an update on that would be useful. And also, in the past few hours, we've heard of a possible new variant related to the delta variant, and that that might be responsible for as many as 6 per cent of new cases now. So, an update from the Minister on what the implications of that could be would be appreciated and what's being done to monitor that in Wales. 

I want to take this opportunity, too, to ask one specific question on a problem that we could face over the winter in terms of providing diagnoses, that there is a great shortage in terms of test tubes for blood tests. This is causing great problems across the NHS, with doctors having to make very difficult decisions as to which patients should have those blood tests because of the shortage of these vials. So, when is this problem going to be resolved, because it's been a problem for many weeks now, and there are very real concerns across health services that this is holding diagnosis and treatment back?

And finally, very briefly, we heard the First Minister today saying that he had been satisfied by the Prime Minister yesterday in terms of his pledges on giving Wales a voice within the UK-wide COVID inquiry, but the campaigners are angry, the campaigners are disappointed with the First Minister's response, following his conversation with the Prime Minister yesterday. We've seen nothing in black and white. Why should we trust Boris Johnson on this when he's been undermining Wales in so many other ways recently?