I WAS delighted for the residents of Cwmfelinfach and Ynysddu that the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board recently decided the local GP surgery in Cwmfelinfach should remain open.

I am grateful that the passionate voice of a community has been listened to.

Ynysddu Labour Councillors Philippa Marsden and John Ridgewell were superb at the heart of the community campaign to oppose the closure.

More than 150 residents packed out a public meeting they called on the issue.

I promised that meeting that I would do all that I could as their Assembly Member to oppose the proposed closure.

So I am naturally delighted that common sense has won the day.

- Wales has a new first minister in Mark Drakeford.

I backed Mark from the moment he declared his candidacy.

I was one of the first Welsh Labour Assembly Members to nominate Mark and I was delighted to host one of his campaign events at the Blackwood Miners’ Institute.

Readers may well be interested in knowing more about our new first minister.

Mark was born and brought up in Carmarthen, and spent a lot of his childhood on his grandparents’ farm in nearby St Clears.

After attending Queen Elizabeth Grammar School for Boys, he studied Latin at the University of Kent.

He went on to complete his PhD on the Green Shirt Movement for Social Credit – an early campaign for universal basic income.

He trained as both a social worker and a teacher, before moving to Cardiff to become a probation officer in the late 1970s.

In 1985, he was elected to South Glamorgan County Council, by which time he was running a Barnardo’s project in the Ely and Caerau areas of Cardiff.

During his time as a councillor, he also helped to establish the youth homelessness charity Llamau.

In the 1990s, he returned to academia, firstly at Swansea University and then Cardiff University, specialising in applied social policy.

He was made professor of social policy and applied social sciences in 2003, and continued lecturing until he became a minister in 2013.

Mark succeeded Rhodri Morgan as the AM for Cardiff West in 2011, and became chairman of the Welsh Assembly's Health Committee.

In 2013, he joined the Welsh Government as health minister, moving to finance and local government after the 2016 election, and finance and Brexit in 2017.

Working with Mark in the National Assembly for Wales since 2016 I have seen first hand his talent, humility and passionate desire to make Wales a fairer society.

I will do all that I can to support our new first minister in these times of unprecedented challenge.