6. What assessment has the Counsel General made of the implications of Brexit for the Welsh NHS? OAQ54797

Brexit has a range of implications for health and social care services, both in the short and long term. At all times, the overriding priority of the Welsh Government will be to safeguard and protect the interests of the Welsh NHS, its patients and the wider public.

Thank you, Minister. You referred in your earlier answer to Delyth Jewell to the dossier that was uncovered last week by the Labour Party. That dossier laid bare the fact that our NHS is very much up for sale in any UK-US trade talks. Do you share my concern that if Brexit goes ahead under a Tory Government, we will very much risk the commercialisation and marketisation of our NHS, and would you agree with me that the only way to prevent that is by remaining in the European Union and kicking this Tory Government out?

Absolutely. I would endorse 100 per cent what the Member has just said. An incoming Conservative Government would put the NHS on the table in trade talks with Donald Trump. I'm absolutely not assured, as I know that she won't be either, by the attempts by the US President to throw us off that particular scent, which I think is obvious to all of us.

The dossier, as I understand it, relates to conversations between UK and US officials that predated the publication of the US negotiating mandate. So, that mandate, if you have read it, absolutely says nowhere that health services are taken off the table, as the UK Government now seems to be seeking to persuade us. It goes out of its way to talk about access for pharmaceutical markets to the UK. That can only mean one thing in the context of the UK healthcare system. So, I absolutely agree with her. Either the UK Government has not taken this off the table, or it has not done half enough to make the US Government clearly understand that there is no way that the NHS is going to be up for negotiation, and absolutely I agree with her that we must make sure there is no incoming Conservative Government that would put the NHS up for sale. 

Thank you. Question 7 [OAQ54794] has been withdrawn and question 8 [OAQ54801] has been withdrawn. Therefore, question 9, Vikki Howells.