BY-ELECTION fever hit the Senedd today as party leaders quizzed the First Minister in the first session since the end of the summer recess.

Welsh Conservative leader Darren Millar said the public was continually raising with him the dire state of the NHS in Wales.

First Minister Eluned Morgan said: “I don’t think a system that has 2.7 million appointments every single month in a population of three million people is a system that’s broken.

Mr Millar pointed out that more than 600,000 people in Wales are on waiting lists.

“A series of freedom of information requests over the summer revealed that since the last Senedd election in 2021, over 38,000 Welsh patients have died while waiting to get treatment while on a waiting list,” Mr Millar said.

The FM said the Tories had tried to block this year’s budget increases and the extra funding put into the NHS.

Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth took a swipe at the Conservatives and Reform UK, saying they wanted to abolish the Senedd, while Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer does not agree with fair funding for Wales.

“Will she tell us when was the last time she called out Starmer's lack of movement on fair funding, and how did he respond?” he asked.

“I will always ask for more from whatever government there is in the United Kingdom, and I know that the Finance Secretary has been in discussions with the Treasury about fair funding,” Ms Morgan responded.

The nationalist leader said scrapping the Barnett formula had the unanimous backing of the Senedd before the summer.

The First Minister told the Senedd that to change the funding formula meant having the the support of Scotland and Northern Ireland, as well as the British government.

Mr ap Iorwerth said the Westminster government had given more money for capital spending to Scotland, which is not governed by the Barnett formula.

“When the Chancellor visited Wales in June she said she’d given the Welsh government everything it had asked for,” the Plaid leader said.

The FM said her government would keep making the case for reform of the funding formula, but reminded Plaid that it had tried to block her recent budget increases to spending in Wales.