The BBC Wales Senedd election debate fact-checked

The leaders of Wales' six big political parties took part in a special BBC debate on Tuesday ahead of the Senedd election. The 90-minute programme saw the politicians make claims on the NHS, immigration and independence among other issues. BBC Verify has examined some of the claims made. Defending her government's record on the NHS, Welsh Labour leader Eluned Morgan said waiting lists had come down "for nine months in a row". This is correct. However, the number of waits is still much higher than in the months before the Covid-19 pandemic. The waiting list was 687,958 in February this year, according to the latest official figures. In the months before the pandemic, waiting lists were typically around 463,000. The number of waits is not the same as the number of individual patients, because some people will be waiting for multiple treatments - the latest report says the February waits refer to 543,400 individual patients. The Wales Green party leader Anthony Slaughter - whose party is pro-independence - talked about the UK government's funding for Wales, saying: "We don't get money from HS2 - we need that money, that's the money that belongs to Wales." This claim refers to the call