Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:28 pm on 1 May 2019.
Well, I'm sure, Llywydd, that this Chamber will be rather concerned that after eight reports over six years, the Minister and his officials had not picked up on the seriousness of this situation. We heard individual testimonies in this Chamber suggesting that those concerns actually go back a lot further than the first report that I'm referring to in 2012. I'm just really concerned, Llywydd, that this is suggesting that we have a Minister who doesn't have a grip on the system. Eight reports over six years, and nothing was done until you called for the report years ago.
I try to avoid being sensationalist in the Chamber, but during those years children died, mothers were traumatised and families were traumatised. I have to ask the Minister why he thinks that we should now be reassured that he and his officials will be able to pick up on these issues effectively when they didn't for that period of years.
I wonder if the Minister agrees with Owen Smith MP when he says in the Western Mail today that the Welsh Government cannot be absolved of blame for the failings in Cwm Taf. I wonder if the Minister understands that many people are concerned about what appears to be a complacent response from him. I was astonished, for example, to hear him yesterday dismiss the implications of the inverse care law—the fact that these communities that were so badly served were so poor. I was shocked to hear him dismiss that. It suggests to me that he doesn't understand those communities very well. I was also shocked—and I am not easily shocked—to hear the Minister say, when asked by ITV yesterday whether the buck stops with him, the Minister's response was that the buck stops with everyone. Well, I'm afraid I must put it to this Chamber, Llywydd, that the buck does not stop with everyone—the buck stops with the Minister. And I am going to ask him again to consider his position, and if he is unable to consider his position, to explain what further, what more serious situation would occur in the health service in Wales, what more has to go wrong before he is prepared to take personal responsibility?