Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:42 pm on 14 December 2022.
Well, look, first of all, I think it's important that I set on record once again that we understand the strength of feeling felt by those people who feel like they've got no other option but to take industrial action. We believe that all our public sector workers should be fairly rewarded, and we think that the chaos that has been created by the Tory Government, and the increases that we've seen in terms of inflation, has eroded a lot of the money that actually would have gone into the pockets of those nurses.
And I think what's important is that we understand that it's not just money going into the pockets of the nurses that's been eroded, but the fact is that, this year, I have had a bill for £207 million for energy that we weren't expecting. Now, £200 million would be the equivalent of giving a 4 per cent increase to NHS workers. Now, I don't think that we can switch the lights off in our hospitals. I don't think that we can switch the heating off in our hospitals, but that might be an option that Plaid Cymru might want to take. But that's not an option that I feel that we can take. And that's the difference between lobbing grenades from the other side of the Chamber and actually being in power, because you have to make those difficult decisions. And I frankly think that we have to keep the lights on, and to keep patients warm when they come into hospital. That's a decision that we've made.