Diolch yn fawr. I am very pleased to present this HIV action plan to the Senedd. This delivers on our ambitious programme for government commitments that we made to develop an HIV action plan for Wales and to tackle the stigma experienced by those living with HIV.

Even though we've made significant strides in many HIV-related areas in recent years, there remains much to be done. This action plan sets out 26 ambitious but achievable actions for implementation by 2026, which we think will go a long way in helping Wales achieve the World Health Organization's target of zero HIV infections by 2030, and, crucially, adopting a zero-tolerance approach to HIV-related stigma. I think the latter is specifically significant; we've come a very long way since the dark days of the 1980s, when ignorance and cruelty towards people with HIV was rife. There is absolutely no place for ignorance and intolerance in modern society, and the actions in this plan aim to stamp out this intolerance.

Now, over the past five years, the Welsh Government, working with other partners, has made great progress in improving access to testing and treatment in Wales. And I think that Wales can be proud of the significant reduction we've seen in new diagnoses of HIV. Between 2015 and 2021, new diagnosis of HIV decreased by 75 per cent. A significant factor in this achievement can be attributed to the commitment by Welsh Government to provide pre-exposure prophylaxis, PrEP, for all for whom it is clinically indicated, and that's been done since the summer of 2017.

Despite the challenges that faced sexual health services throughout the COVID pandemic, access to HIV testing was maintained, both through face-to-face consultations, and through the rapid deployment of online testing. And this blended model of access to HIV tests has resulted in more people being tested for HIV between January and March 2022 than in any previous quarter. The online service that was implemented in May 2020 has exceeded expectations in terms of the expected number of tests requested, making sexually transmitted infection testing, including HIV, even more accessible, which reduces stigma. The success of this model is recognised in the action plan, and I'm pleased to announce today that the Welsh Government will be providing annual funding of £3.9 million for the continuation and development of this online testing platform going forward.

This action plan has been co-created by a range of key stakeholders and is the product of many months of collaborative working with my officials. In the autumn of 2021 we established an HIV action plan working group, chaired by Dr Marion Lyons, a senior medical officer in Welsh Government, with a vast amount of experience in the field of HIV and sexual health. The group consisted of a diverse range of stakeholders, including those from the community and voluntary sector, healthcare professionals, academics and, importantly—very importantly—people living with HIV with personal lived experience.