6. What action is the Welsh Government taking to ensure that Conwy and Denbighshire have an NHS estate that is fit for purpose? OQ58568

Llywydd, we go on investing in the NHS estate in all parts of Wales, including Conwy and Denbighshire, despite the continuous reductions in capital budgets provided by the UK Government.

Thank you for that answer, First Minister. When you were health Minister back in 2013, you promised the people of north Denbighshire and, indeed, north-east Conwy in my constituency, that there would be a new community hospital, which would be built in Rhyl, to replace the closed beds at the Royal Alexandra in Rhyl and, indeed, the Prestatyn community hospital. We're more than nine years on from your announcement, and we still don't have a north Denbighshire community hospital. When can people in north Denbighshire and in north-east Conwy expect to see your promise, as health Minister, now that you're First Minister, delivered?

Well, Llywydd, I was pleased to approve the strategic outline case that the health board put forward when I was health Minister. It said that the new facility could be provided at a cost of £22 million. By the time that my colleague Vaughan Gething approved the outline business case in 2018, the cost had risen to £40 million. The Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board papers reporting the full business case say that it's now risen to £64 million pounds, and that was at the end of 2020, so we can be absolutely confident that it's well above £64 million. So, the cost of the scheme has gone up by more than three times the original cost estimate. And, you know, it's inescapable that a scheme that escalates in costs in that way has to go through very rigorous scrutiny by the Welsh Government, and we do continue to look at the latest iteration of the case that the board has provided. As costs go up in the way that I've just reported, so available capital to the Welsh Government declines. In the current year, our capital budget is 17.5 per cent below where it was in the last financial year; it will decline by a further 2.9 per cent in the next financial year. It will go down from that lower base by 1.2 per cent in the next financial year, and it will go down again in the year after that. So, costs go up on the one hand, and the money available to meet those costs goes down on the other. That is not an easy position from which to take forward many necessary schemes of investment in the Welsh NHS.