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Opinion

Labour’s reckless cuts are having dire consequences for my constituents and people across Wales who rely on our NHS

By Mark Mansfield
Welsh Secretary David TC Davies outside the Grange Hospital

David TC Davies, Secretary of State for Wales

It's a fact that the Labour Welsh Government is one of the only governments in the whole of the United Kingdom to cut an NHS budget in real terms.

And two weeks ago, we learnt with horror that Labour, which is wholly responsible for health in Wales, had struck again –this time forcing health boards to make more than £60 million in cuts.

Labour’s decision to punch Welsh hospitals will only exacerbate the mounting pressures that they are already buckling under.

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Waiting list

At present, 583,000 patients – almost one in five people in Wales - are languishing on a waiting list, as well as over 27,000 people awaiting treatment for more than two years (the equivalent figure in England is 190.

There are serious issues in broader health terms, too; take my own constituency, where Labour wants to remove overnight minor injury provision from Nevil Hall Hospital, as well as further plans to downgrade key ambulance stations including in Monmouth town.

I have experienced at first-hand Labour’s assault on local health provision, resulting in my elderly father-in-law waiting for over 26 hours to get into hospital after suffering a recent accident.

He might have been one of the many thousands of people waiting in A&E who aren’t even captured by the statistics which Wales collects on NHS performance.

Labour’s reckless cuts are having dire consequences for my constituents and people across Wales who rely on our NHS.

Unsurprisingly, Labour ministers are falsely claiming that they ‘had no choice’, before predictably adding ‘more money is needed from the UK Government’.

This is demonstrably untrue.

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Financially equipped

The UK Government has ensured that the Welsh Government is financially equipped to ensure the Welsh NHS receives what it needs. Currently the Welsh Government is receiving the largest annual block grant (£18 billion), in real terms, since devolution began.

This inevitably begs the pertinent question: where is large chunks of taxpayers’ money going, if not on our NHS?

Labour ministers are wasting it on countless vanity projects they have been dreaming up since 1999: from hundreds of millions wasted developing plans for new roads which have now been axed to the more than £30 million spent on imposing 20mph blanket speeds.

But one of their latest vanity projects is the most appalling.

Thousands of hours have been wasted in Cardiff Bay developing plans to create dozens of extra politicians in the Welsh Parliament.

It is a national scandal that, whilst instructing health boards to make £64 million of cuts, they want to go on a £120-million spending spree with taxpayers’ money to create another needless tier of bureaucracy.

Let me be clear: creating more Members of the Senedd will not tackle waiting lists or improve hospitals’ overall performance.

Sadly, strengthening the Welsh NHS isn’t a priority for Labour.

But it is for me.

I call on Labour to prioritise safeguarding the Welsh NHS and halt their plans to waste more than £100 million of taxpayers’ money on creating more politicians.

David TC Davies is the Member of Parliament for Monmouth and the Secretary of State for Wales.

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34 comments

Bore da

a tory worried about the nhs, now there's a thing. and if he thinks we're wasting money on politicians why doesn't he do the right thing and resign?

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John Brooks

Absolute hypocrisy from this crass opportunist. As a member of the UK Tory Government he needs to look a little closer to home.

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Fi yn unig

Picking through the standard lies, (financially equipped) hypocrisy and propaganda here, I find that TC has shot himself down in the opening paragraph. He states that the Labour Welsh government is ‘ONE OF’ the only governments in the United Kingdom to cut an NHS budget in real terms. If it is ‘one of’, he should tell us who the others are and why.

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Jeff

Look around the UK chum. Look at the mess we are in. Look at the disparity between the rich and the poor. Look at what YOU enable the UK government to do to the poor. Look at the massive drop in standards your government enact on the people. Look at the profits you allow to leave the Uk denudung the people in the UK. Look at your governments policy with the NHS, where you are setting up to sell of and where it is already sold off. Look at your plans to meddle in devolution. Look at the way you treat unions and try to remove their rights. Look at the way your government has wrecked the UK with brexit. Look at the way you have tried to defend Boris and Sunak with covid. I could go on. The old adage, when you point a finger, there are three more pointing back at you. You are not fit to run a bath let alone a country. Now get back under your rock. https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2023/nov/27/uk-spends-more-financing-inequality-in-favour-of-rich-than-rest-of-europe-report-finds

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Paul ap Gareth

Wales voted for more powers in 2011, more powers means more politicians. Davis knows this since Westminster cancelled a reduction of MPs to 600, maintaining 650 MPs because of the extra work caused by Brexit. He needs to respect the referendum and the deliver the will of the people. David should help Wales' finances by scrapping Barnet and funding Wales by an assessment of its needs. We have an older, sicker, population with greater levels of poverty. Barnet is acknowledged to be unfair to Wales but he, and the government he represents, refuses to change.

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Che Guevara's Fist

Why on Earth is Nation.Cymru giving that hypocritical tory scum a platform here? His party has presided over every cut since they came to power nearly fourteen years ago now. We're not stupid. We know Westminster still dictates terms and conditions of devolution, especially when it comes to NHS funding that we can't get from the money we hand over to the UK treasury. We saw this with the Covid funding we were prohibited by Westminster from spending while Westminster wasted BILLIONS. Playing the blame game as per usual.

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Padi Phillips

Looking at the comments I think it's pretty obvious why NC has given space to this Tory. There is not one complimentary comment and it's clear that no one is fooled by his claims. My first reaction when I saw the headline was 'Why doesn't this fool remain silent. All he's doing is shooting himself in the foot!' Sometimes giving people a platform on which to expose themselves is a good thing.

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Dai Ponty

And the Tories have been in Power going on 14 years and wrecked everything but you being a supporter of the scum party Tory ignore this

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Cwm Rhondda

And that concludes a Party Political Broadcast on behalf of the Conservative Party.

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Steve Woods

With the emphasis being placed firmly on the first syllable of CONservative.

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Dai Ponty

Come the next General election this low life Scum will be on the Dole and many more of his M P.s from the Scum party for the damage they have done to the U K

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Stevie B

Surely David Davies didn't keep a straight face when he wrote this garbage. What a load of patronising twaddle.

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Gareth

In a dysfunctional relationship, just like we have in the UK, the abuser always blames the abused.

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Fi yn unig

Yes, and just like in any coercive control relationship, the oppressed party eventually plucks up the courage to leave.

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Riki

Some do! Irish for example. The Welsh will never have the courage to because the masses genuinely believe the abuse is to the benefit of them. This is why The Welsh and Irish are seen as worlds apart. The Welsh fully accept the world in which has been presented to them.

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In reply to Riki

hdavies15

.........and the soon to depart Drakeford is a prime advocate of that abusive dependency relationship. Tory and Labour alike they love blaming each other while they preside over the further impoverishment and degradation of a nation's health.

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In reply to Riki

Padi Phillips

That's massively determinist and could be seen as racist. Independence wasn't such a big issue to the vast majority of the Irish in 1916 and public opinion there only really shifted to supporting independence after the Eater Rising and the inconsistent manner win which the British Government treated the rebels.

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In reply to Padi Phillips

Riki

It’s not racist to state facts backed up by centuries worth of proof. As for the “British” government. You and your argument lost me as soon as you called the English government “British”. British, Britons, Britain, Prydain. The Welsh are thee British. Not knowing this simple fact is rubbing salt in the wounds as to how the people of Wales have been treated…and fully shows why Wales needs its independence. But unfortunately none of us will ever get to see it. My comment was meant to reflect the reality of Modern Wales, nothing more and nothing less.

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In reply to Riki

Padi Phillips

That's your opinion, and you're entitled to it, but it's just that, an opinion. Your comment about the Welsh is determinist, and I didn't say that it was racist, just that it could be seen to be such. The fact that the Welsh, for whatever reasons have not decided to secede from the UK in the past is no guarantee that they won't do so in the future, which is what my comment about the Irish situation was about - let's not forget that the Irish rebels in 1916 were largely regarded as extremist loonies by most of their compatriots previous to the British response. Clearly you were asleep at the back of the class when the story of how the modern sense of Britishness was created. That's not an argument but a fact, and one borne out by the way that most in the world would understand it. I'm well aware of what the original meaning of British is, and that remained a tenable position until around the time that the United Kingdom of Great Britain came into being. Even until the mid 19th century there was some remnant of the original sense as when referring to the British language when referring to Cymraeg. however, meanings change, and since the British imperial period it has become impossible to rehabilitate the term, and I use it in that sense. If I refer to the Welsh, I increasingly use Cymry, Cymru, Cymreig or Cymraeg, but never British because of the ambiguity of the term. I personally refuse to identify, or be identified as British because of its associations. We simply don't know if, or when the Cymry will decide whether they want to claim their full sovereignty but it could happen pretty suddenly as was the case with Ireland - all it could take is an event that the British government handles badly or a realisation that just maybe we could do better as a sovereign nation. Let's not forget that for the first time ever those of us who regard ourselves as Cymry/Welsh are more inclined towards self determination.

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In reply to Padi Phillips

Riki

Read your response in full and fair enough, you make some good points. I just don’t see it however as we have fallen for the propaganda to such an extent it’s almost ingrained in us from birth to see the English as our betters. English use in Wales is born out of this insane belief. They demonised Welsh mothers to such an extent where they started to believe English was a path to a better life, when in reality all it did was to speed up the anglicisation of Wales.

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Mr Williams

The hypocrisy of David Davies' argument is beyond words! Does he take us for fools?

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Fi yn unig

Yes he does. That’s why we love him so - NOT!

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Riki

Welsh Labour may be incompetent, but let’s not forget that Welsh Tories are Traitors!!! Big difference.

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Sikejsudjek

No Tory has any grounds to criticise Labour when they have failed to train enough staff, failed to fund the NHS, stolen billions from the Welsh budget for HS2 and made a total mess of health care in England. 13 years of Tory austerity and everything is broken. Then there are the billions on dodgy PPE contracts to their mates, dodgy privatisations, dodgy offshore tax dodging, and knighthoods to cronies. You will be obliterated at the next election and out for a generation. Good riddance!

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Annibendod

Take a hike Dic Sion Dafydd Davies. Labour are pretty bad. The worst thing they do is enable you to be in Government of Wales thanks to their idiotic Unionism. But you are far, far worse than they are. Take your vile, far right government and stick it where the sun doesn't shine. And remember - Wales has never ever returned a majority of Tories in the history of democracy. You have no mandate to govern us. You are a disgrace.

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Stevie B

Great comment, this is spot on. Cymru Rydd.

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Ernie The Smallholder

We could have spent our share of the crown estates. But the UK Tory government grabbed it and lost it in the UK Bureaucracy. We could have invested our share of the returns from cancelled HS2 (as Scotland did) But the UK Tory government grabbed it and lost it in the UK Bureaucracy. He talks about the increase in Senedd members (only taking us to the average for a country of our size in the World). He does not say how many hundreds of new Tories there will be unelected to the House of Lords. For 20mph limit: On most of our roads where it applies is actually the safest upper limit.

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Y Cymro

Maybe the billions lost to Wales in HS2 consequential you denied including the £125 million of Welsh block repatriated by you David TC Davies back to the treasury to be spent of more road & rail infrastructure in London might have eased Wales and your constituents financial woes including helping our struggling Welsh NHS this winter.

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Linda Jones

Such a hypocrite, the tories have practically destroyed our infrastructure, including the NHS, thanks to their obsession with austerity and their fake 'balancing the books' propaganda that goes with it. If Davies is interested in Wales he could be challenging the tory budget cuts, fight for the return of our £5 billion HS2 money, secure a better Barnet deal for Wales and even have our Crown properties returned to us, just to name a few

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Jeff

Seen what your colleague in the cabinet is saying at parties? Your chumsin the far right press and social media would be out attacking any labour MP with this if it was them. I hope you condemn it fully. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/dec/23/james-cleverly-apologises-for-appalling-date-drug-joke-at-no-10-event

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Jeff

Meanwhile Mr Davies, your party is running shady attacks on people. Notice the people your party are asking to run offensive campaigns, remember them? You have used them before. Really really don't go down this road when your party is so culpable in ruining the NHS. https://goodlawproject.org/pr-firm-topham-guerin-tories-and-palantir-offers-to-pay-influencers-attacks-twitter-x/

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Phil Nedin

My understanding is that Whitehall informed the Senedd (2 months ago) that they have reduced funding of £900m which is mid term cut. That means that the Senedd has committed the money. Additionally there is a £1.3bn reduction in the funding due to the world beating inflation we have had. If we add into this the HS2 share that Wales failed to get and the community fund that we used to get from the EU but of course following Brexit this was never made up by Whitehall. It seems clear that Whitehall are “creating” a political environment of failure in Wales due to reduced funding. They hope this will offer hope to the Tory’s in the GE by pointing to the failure in Wales that will be replicated by Kier Starmers Labour Party!

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Gwyn Williams

We in Wales get our money from a Tory government and not enough money he's having a laugh NHS in Wales is better than England fact

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john inglesby

Hi David can you tell me why monmouthshire environmental health is unfit for the job I and a number of people this time last year contracted dysentary"shigella poisoning from a kebab shop in Abergavenny, some people were hospitalised and suffered really badly, I experienced the worst illness in my life. and still suffering the consequences along with others I have been in touch with. this happened on february 10th 2023, and they are still making enquiries, All the people that suffered contracted the shigella from the same place at or around the same dates but they seem to have difficulty working that out, they need a kick up the backside, can you help, thank you, I will continue to torment them until I get accountability.

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Replying to Padi Phillips Cancel

That's your opinion, and you're entitled to it, but it's just that, an opinion. Your comment about the Welsh is determinist, and I didn't say that it was racist, just that it could be seen to be such. The fact that the Welsh, for whatever r...

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