Your intervention deserves a good response, because that isn't true. The Minister has the power to remove the employee members of the board. Yes, not to terminate their employment, but what is at issue here is their executive leadership role, and the National Health Service (Wales) Act 2006, section 27, sets out absolutely clearly that the Minister has the right to remove all members of the board, including employee members of the board. So, I'm afraid that we are being given an incomplete picture by the Minister.

Let me turn to the manner in which the independent members were removed. We've been told in the various accounts that we've heard, none of which have been challenged by the Government, that they were called to an early-morning meeting, they were presented with an ultimatum, essentially, 'Either resign or you will be sacked', and they were given 30 minutes to make their minds up, a very short period of time, with all of the implications for their professional reputations. NHS Wales has signed up to the principles of what they term 'compassionate leadership', and yet here we have an example where the auditor general, in a report published just a few weeks before, had referred to several board members showing

'visible signs of emotional distress, giving us concern about their well-being.'

The auditor general goes on to say:

'Urgent action is needed to address this situation.'

I suggest the urgent action he was not suggesting was that you get those people into a room, you put huge coercive pressure on them, and present them with an ultimatum. That is the absolute opposite of compassionate leadership. It is not the way to behave, quite frankly, and it is not acceptable. It completely lacks empathy. 'My way or the highway'—that is not the way that we should be running public services in Wales.

I'll turn to the special measures regime. It just doesn't work—the entire escalation and intervention framework. Betsi Cadwaladr in special measures for five years, taken out, that doesn't work and it's put back in. It entirely is a system that is failing, and we should actually accept and acknowledge that. 

The First Minister, in response to questions from me a few weeks ago, said that Betsi Cadwaladr was taken out of special measures in November 2020 because the auditor general said that they should do so. Well, my understanding—and I'm quite happy to see the documentary evidence—is that that is not the role of the auditor general. They provide the information and the evidence for Ministers to decide, because it is Ministers, ultimately, that should be accountable.