7. 7. Welsh Conservatives Debate: The Programme for Government

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:45 pm on 28 September 2016.

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Photo of Andrew RT Davies Andrew RT Davies Conservative 4:45, 28 September 2016

The junior doctors are developing a seven-day NHS that will get rid of premature deaths on weekends, that will deliver a service that acute hospitals will deliver, and that will make sure that waiting times come down in England, because they’re already under what we have here in Wales. Just in case you haven’t caught up with the news, actually the courts have judged today that the UK Government has the right to impose that contract that will deliver a seven-day NHS. You might disagree with a seven-day NHS, but at least the UK Government have put—[Interruption.] At least the UK Government have put on the table what their aspirations are. What have you done in this document? Fifteen pages of just fine words, but little or no substance. That cannot be a Government that is—[Interruption.] I will not take an intervention at the moment. If I have time, I will take it a little later, Joyce. But that cannot be sign of a confident Government—a Government that is brimming with ideas. You are in the early part of your tenure—your five years to change the landscape of Wales—and you just have not succeeded in doing that with this document.

Today, for example, we’ve had the European external advisory committee put together. On page 14, the document states

‘Work to ensure that membership of our democratic bodies better reflect the whole of society and improve equal representation on elected bodies and public sector boards’.

There is not one ethnic minority candidate on that board—not one. Only 28 per cent of the board are women, and there are two representatives from north Wales. How is that meeting what is, most probably, the most basic aspiration within this document? If you can’t meet the most basic aspiration of the document, how on earth are you going to be able to deliver the more complicated and more knotty issues that need undoing?

In particular, the most galling thing in this document is the identification that there is a postcode lottery when it comes to drugs and waiting times in Wales. Who’s been running the NHS for 17 years in Wales? You have done nothing for 17 years, and yet you’re pointing out in your own document that there is a lottery existing in Wales. You’ve failed to do it for the first 17—what confidence can we have that you will succeed in unpicking that with this document that you’ve laid before us?

So, I put it to the house tonight that what needs to happen here today is that the house does come together, sends a clear message to the governing party to show our lack of confidence in this document and calls on the Government to bring forward a more coherent strategy of governing Wales and of taking Wales forward with a strategy that can be delivered, that will deliver a decline in waiting times, that will deliver an improvement in education and, above all, that will deliver prosperity to all parts of Wales. If Members of this house on the opposition benches choose to try to scupper this motion or vote with the Government, then we really can see the crocodile tears behind the sentiments that, from time to time, they stress within this place.

This is a simple document that needs to be torn down and replaced with something that is more substantial, that can be benchmarked and that can deliver the real gains that Wales desperately needs in the second decade of the twenty-first century. Anything less and the people of Wales will have been let down and it’ll be another wasted five years. I move the motion today and I urge support for the motion before you.