I thank you for your statement. I'm pleased to note that the Welsh Government eventually allocated almost £14 million of emergency funding to support Welsh hospices throughout the pandemic, after I, as chair of the cross-party group on hospices and palliative care, had to repeatedly raise the gap between the money the Welsh Government received from the UK Government in consequence of its funding for hospices throughout the pandemic in England and the amount the Welsh Government initially allocated to support hospices in Wales. 

Twelve years after I hosted the 2006 Assembly event, highlighting the essential role played by hospices in providing palliative care services in Wales, and calling on the Welsh Government to address the growing funding crisis they were facing, attended by every hospice in Wales, I chaired the cross-party group on hospices and palliative care's inquiry into inequalities in access to hospice and palliative care in Wales, which found that there's significant unmet need and undermet need, that statutory hospice funding has flatlined for a decade and therefore fallen in real terms each year, that statutory funding of children's hospices in Wales was significantly lower than in England and Scotland, and that statutory funding for adult hospices in Wales as a percentage of expenditure was lower than in any other UK nation.

Leading the Welsh Conservative opposition debate on hospices and palliative care services in Wales here in 2019, I noted that, while approximately 23,000 people in Wales have a palliative care need at any one time, including over 1,000 children, around 1 in 4, approximately 6,000 people, don't get access to the end-of-life care they need. I called on the Welsh Government to take action to help radically improve access to hospice and palliative care for everyone across Wales. 

In responses to written questions last year, this health Minister confirmed that, of its £8.4 million end-of-life funding, only some £800,000 was allocated specifically to support specialist palliative care services across Wales, and less than £200,000 of this went directly to children's hospices with none for adult hospices. Yet, for example, we heard at last Thursday's cross-party group on funerals and bereavement, which I chaired, that the joint project between Cardiff and Bristol universities to explore care and bereavement experiences during COVID-19 found that these were far more positive when support was provided by hospices. 

Given all of the above, I join our hospices in welcoming this long-awaited announcement, and must flag up the enormous work they've put into achieving this, including the Tŷ Hafan and Tŷ Gobaith children's hospices lifeline fund campaign, noting that they've received less than 10 per cent of their funding from statutory sources in Wales, the lowest level of statutory funding across the UK nations, and calling for the Welsh Government to provide the lifeline that hundreds of children and their families across Wales so desperately need.

Given her statement today that the Minister has accepted the recommendations of the end-of-life care board voluntary hospices funding review, and that she'll be making an additional £2.2 million available to Welsh hospices annually, including £888,000 to Tŷ Hafan and Tŷ Gobaith, will she confirm whether this now closes the hospice funding contribution gap with the other UK nations, both for children's and adult hospices? If not, why not, and what funding gap remains? How will the additional funding be delivered? How will the Minister monitor end-of-life care funding delivered via health boards to establish how much of this reaches hospices and whether this is delivering the best outcomes for patients and their families?

Given the Minister's statement that the funding will be available on a recurring basis from 2022-23, can she commit to this funding being recurrent for at least the lifetime of the sixth Senedd? Can she provide further details on what costs she envisages this funding will cover? Will she confirm whether this funding will be made available to our hospices via a single annual payment, allowing them the resources to invest in ensuring they can make the biggest difference to the people and families that use their services? Can she provide some clarity over how the hospices will report against such funding and confirm whether this will be based on reach and need and not be overly onerous? And finally, how will she, her officials and other public service partners continue to work with our adult and children's hospices, without whose sustainability and input it would be impossible to create a compassionate Cymru, a compassionate Wales?