Diolch, Llywydd, and I move the amendments in the name of my colleague Darren Millar. Can I thank Plaid Cymru for bringing forward this debate again? I say 'again' because we keep having health debates. It's very similar to a debate brought forward last week, and I don't think that we can have too many health debates in this Chamber. The Minister's looking, like, 'Please ease up a bit', but I think, seriously, I think we can't have too many debates around the challenges that our health service is facing. And the Welsh NHS is in a very unstable position, I would suggest, and I would agree with the Welsh NHS Confederation in their assessment of the pressures, as outlined in the motion today.

I also think it's important to stress that the issues that the NHS is facing, and some of our challenges, are in no way the fault of our fantastic health and care sector professionals who work across Wales. They're working in very challenging circumstances, and we of course thank them for all they do. And that's why I think the Welsh Government should bring forward a strategy to reduce the pressures on our NHS, and a start would be not to cut the health and social care budget in real terms, I would suggest.

One thing I did want to touch on in my contribution was—again, Andrew R.T. raised it with the First Minister yesterday—about the state of our infrastructure, the state of our hospitals, the poorly maintained state that they're in and the working environments that many have to work in. And, as Andrew pointed out yesterday, only 62 per cent of buildings owned by Bestsi Cadwaladr University Health Board are operationally safe, and that's not a rare position. Only 72 per cent of buildings owned by the Welsh health boards have been reported as operationally safe. Well, it's not too much to ask that our health workers, our nurses, have good working conditions to be in, and, of course, that's not to even mention the issues around patient safety. As the Welsh NHS Confederation pointed out ahead of today's debate, if we're going to have a workforce and we're going to improve the morale of our health professionals, and if we're going to retain nurses and be able to recruit more health professionals to our Welsh NHS, we've got to start by making sure that we've got a workplace that's fit for purpose. And I think it's absolutely crucial that we have that investment in our hospitals. I'm disappointed. I heard the First Minister yesterday, pointing the finger at Westminster. Well, hang on, it's been 25 years, a quarter of a century of a Labour-led Government that has been responsible for the Welsh NHS. I don't think that it's reasonable to be pointing the finger at Westminster when we've got the position that we're in, with only 62 per cent of buildings in Betsi being operationally safe.

But the other issue as well is investment in training, in terms of training new NHS staff. We have had some funding for that, and I think that's very welcome; I don't think that's enough, but I think that's very much welcomed. I think we all agree—we've talked about agency nursing a great deal in the Chamber—I think we're all on the same page to say that this is all going in the wrong direction. The spend on agency nursing has increased, as Rhun ap Iorwerth pointed out, and we cannot be in a position where the spend on agency nursing is increasing to the extent it is, which is why we've put forward one of our amendments today in terms of putting a cap on agency spend. That's not the solution; that's one part of the solution, but I would suggest that we need to make sure that we have a sustainable funding plan in place to recruit and train staff in both the health and social care sectors.

Just to talk briefly as well in terms of prevention. It's so important, prevention. It's not one of the Government's priorities. I do appreciate that you can't have too many priorities, otherwise there are no priorities, but prevention, I feel that that's been pushed down the list of priorities into the deprioritisation area. If we're going to enable us to have an NHS that meets some of our challenges, we've got to make sure that we're making sure that there's appropriate focus and spend on preventative measures as well.

Finally, Presiding Officer, I was very keen to support the last part of the motion that Plaid brought forward today in terms of the new NHS executive, and having power to make real change. I absolutely agree on that position. Certainly, in our Welsh Conservative manifesto in 2021, we pledged to create an NHS Wales as a separate organisation, independent from the Welsh Government, which would have, in my view, cut bureaucracy and made for quicker decisions to be made and to better equip the Welsh NHS. I can see the Minister sighing, but she'll probably, perhaps, address that in some of her closing remarks today. But, thank you, Presiding Officer.