But it isn’t just on the alleged privatisation and austerity where there are concerns due to the political structure of Wales being overly dependent on decisions made by politicians in London. The transatlantic trade and investment partnership talks that were ongoing a couple of years ago attracted major concern because of the effects that such a deal could have on the NHS. Had TTIP been signed in one of its early forms, certainly the NHS would have had no choice but to open up provision to the numerous private health companies lobbying for such a deal, remember. Indeed, some opposition to TTIP was publicly expressed by the Eurosceptic movement as a way to bring people to an anti-European position. But I would argue that we are now perhaps in even greater danger from such an agreement being pursued by the UK Government, unilaterally with the United States. At least the EU has strong internal political pressures to maintain public health systems. It’s naivety of the utmost, I think, to pretend that the emboldened Thatcherites likely to resume control of the UK Government are going to have the interests of the NHS at heart when negotiating trade deals. I’d even add that many may see this as a way of pushing through their long-term agenda of NHS privatisation, and being able to avoid blame by subsequently blaming an unintended consequence.

With that I turn to the final aspect of this debate. Yes, the NHS is in danger of privatisation. I’m aware that the Conservatives are now downplaying the extent to which private providers have actually taken over the running of NHS services since the 2012 Health and Social Care Act in England, but the facts do show a growth: slow-release privatisation has seen the percentage of the health budget finding its way into private hands rising from 4 per cent in 2009-10 to 8 per cent in 2015. The slowness, incidentally, of this growth actually reflects some inconvenient facts. It’s actually pretty difficult to make money from some parts of the NHS, so why would a private sector provider want to run it? You can only really start a significant privatisation, you could argue, by allowing providers to turn people away for treatment if they can’t pay.

Finally, the bigger danger to core services isn’t so much from obscure commissioning rules and contract design, it’s from continual poor performance, leading to people perceiving that private health insurance, or the private healthcare route, is essential in ensuring that they get prompt diagnosis in treatment. I’m sure I’m not the only Member in this Chamber who’s been approached by constituents who say they have been encouraged and advised by GPs or hospital consultants to seek private treatment because that would get them that treatment quicker. Those constituents tell me that they have felt they have no option. Private providers can only really start to make money if health insurance grows, therefore they need waiting lists to get longer, to the extent people fear for their own health.

So, I think we’re probably not going to get to a stage where a mainstream political party advocates fully a privatised system. It will be pursued, I think, through stealth, by the few true believers, and emerge slowly as a result of a thousand decisions made by pragmatists operating within constrained financial circumstances. The perception is that offering services for competitive tender brings efficiency savings or better care. This will happen alongside the removal of any free treatment for things deemed by some to be luxuries or lifestyle treatments—IVF, perhaps; gender identity.

So this is the risk of the Conservative NHS: in the long run, their NHS will be shrunk and become like the UK version of Medicare. If you’re lucky—[Interruption.] I will certainly give way.