Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:45 pm on 3 December 2019.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:45, 3 December 2019

Llywydd, the Member has spent too long touring the television studios. His view of what matters to people in Wales is distorted by the hours he spends running Wales down in front of television audiences. And, in fact, he's a victim of his own propaganda if he believes that shadow Labour Members are somehow answerable to him. The NHS in Wales is controlled by a Labour Government with Labour Ministers here answering questions across this Chamber every week, and on every aspect of it. That's where decisions are made. If he doesn't understand devolution, luckily people in Wales do, and they'll take, I think, not kindly at all to his view that the things that he happens to say in a television studio are the way in which public services in Wales ought to be organised. [Interruption.]—I heard him say it, so he'll want to dwell, maybe, for a moment on that. 

The reason we won't be supporting Plaid Cymru Members on the floor of the House of Commons in the way that he suggests is because we are campaigning for a Government that would render the need for such a Bill entirely unnecessary. What this country needs is a Labour Government in Westminster prepared to stand up to Donald Trump, prepared to make it clear that our NHS is not up for sale, and then there will be no need for the sort of Bill that the Member refers to. We're still fighting this general election; we haven't already given it up.