Two and a half weeks ago I got a message from my friend, the Independent Member of the Senedd, PoliticoBailey, to see if I wanted to work with him on a motion regarding the Government’s inquiry into the last Government’s healthcare plans. Without a second of doubt, I told him that he could count us in, we decided to bridge the gap between us and Llafur Cymru and fight for what is right.

Let me be clear, we are not supportive of the plans of the former Government, we have not and will not support healthcare nationalisation in any way, shape, or form. We will continue to try to abolish the National Health Service and will go into the election with that ideal. Just because we disagree on the policy does not mean that we should throw away money to have civil servants do research on plans that never came into action. But that is exactly what the current Government is trying to do.

The current Government is wasting taxpayers’ money to let the civil service do research if the plans from the former Government were lawful or not. We believe that this is a political choice, not something that the civil service should be used for. They also want to use the civil service to look at plans on abolishing the tax breaks on theatre companies, they are actively hiding behind the civil servants and letting them make political choices instead of the Government making them themselves.

Little over a week ago we saw the motion be debated on the floor, but there was a noticeable absence in the Siambr, the entire Government failed to show up to debate the motion attacking their plans. Only the three people on behalf of the parties supporting the motion, PoliticoBailey, Dyn-Cymru, and myself were debating in favour of this important motion. This shameful affair was even made more shameful when the entire Government decided to vote against the motion, without even explaining their view in the debate on the motion itself.

The Government then chose to double-down on their mistake, with the Acting First Minister saying things like, “It is simply that it being publicised has led to Opposition discontent.” As if we, the Opposition, are the ones asking for such a review and that the publication of a review is the thing we are worried about. The Acting First Minister has no clue what they are talking about in this regard, it seems like they are forgetting that the Government is the cause of this and that it is their inquiry, not ours.

The Acting First Minister then decided to avoid any type of responsibility, saying that “It would be unwise for me to make any major changes to Government policy while I remain in a temporary role, and I cannot comment on the matter when the inquiry into such continues to go ahead.

It seems like the Acting First Minister is forgetting that they are the one responsible for Government policy, they are the one making the decisions, they can stop this inquiry. Hiding behind a First Minister that has been gone for two and a half weeks already is hurting Wales. Hiding like this will make the state of Wales worse and they should just be the adult in the room, govern themselves, not hide behind civil servants, and stop this witch-hunt.