The Welsh Conservatives are calling out Labour for continuing to hide from accountability, this time in the House of Commons during their own party’s opposition day motion on ‘Long-term NHS strategy’, in which no Welsh Labour MPs turned up.
The UK Government’s Health Secretary, Steve Barclay MP, highlighted this in the House of Commons yesterday during the debate, saying: “It is interesting that for this debate, none of their Welsh colleagues are here”.
It comes after the Labour-run Welsh NHS registered its slowest ambulance response times on record, as well as the worst A&E waits and longest treatment waiting list in Britain.
While Labour refused to turn up, Welsh Conservative MPs were there to make sure Wales was represented. Alun Cairns, Robin Millar, Simon Baynes, and the Secretary of State for Wales, David TC Davies were in attendance holding Labour to account.
Commenting, Welsh Conservative Shadow Health Minister Russell George MS said:
“We know Labour Senedd members are allergic to scrutiny here in Cardiff Bay, but it’s become apparent Labour MPs are also so ashamed of its party’s record in government in Wales they cannot even bring themselves to defend it in the House of Commons.
“The sheer audacity for Labour to table a motion on ‘Long-term NHS strategy’ when their strategy in Wales appears to be to run it into the ground shows labour to be blatantly neglectful of its responsibilities to the people of Wales.
“Labour might want to consider a Labour Government in Wales has been in charge in tackling this ‘deprivation’ for over twenty years, before using it as an excuse for racking up the worst waiting times in Britain.
“Given there are 55,000 people waiting over two years for treatment in Wales when it is zero in England, maybe Labour should be taking note of a strategy that works rather than criticising it.”
Labour appeared to brush the record of the Cardiff Bay government on the other side of the M4 under the rug when Conservative MPs held them accountable.
Labour MP Imran Hussain accused the Conservatives of the ‘Welsh defence’ but if Labour-run Wales wasn’t performing so poorly compared to England there would be no need to bring it up as a ‘defence’.
In fact, Labour’s poor defence of their record in Wales came from Wes Streeting, Shadow Health Secretary in Westminster, claiming Wales’ NHS suffers because of the “deprivation” in Wales, another policy area where Labour ministers have failed.