Order, Order.

We turn now to a vote on the Motion on the Welsh Government’s Health Nationalisation Inquiry.

Motion on the Welsh Government’s Health Nationalisation Inquiry

The Senedd notes:

(1) The First Minister has made a statement to the Senedd announcing the commission of a Health Nationalisation Inquiry, through a civil service report, into the healthcare nationalisation plans of the predecessor Welsh Government.

(2) This is intended to be a four part report by the civil service “establishing the facts” around the previous Government’s policies - investigating the existence, legality, feasibility, and redundancy of the plans from the former Welsh Government.

(3) There is no recent precedent of the Welsh Government commissioning a civil service inquiry into the policies of its predecessor, and further notes that the plan subject to investigation by the civil service was an electoral commitment of Llafur Cymru, contained in their manifesto at the previous Senedd election.

(4) The Welsh Government has opted to commission a civil service report into the policies of a predecessor Government, rather than opting to pursue alternative methods such as a cross-party committee of the Senedd with elected Members of the Senedd having the ability to conduct their own inquiry.

(5) There is little time until the next Senedd election, and the Welsh Government is free to formulate their own healthcare nationalisation plans without seeking to use the civil service to investigate that of its predecessors.

The Senedd therefore:

(1) Calls upon the Welsh Government to immediately halt this Health Nationalisation Inquiry, as announced to the Senedd in the Statement on Civil Service Reports.

(2) Calls upon the First Minister to confirm that they will not proceed with the Health Nationalisation Inquiry, or commission further civil service reports into the policies of a predecessor Government.

This motion was submitted by Independent MS /u/PoliticoBailey, and is co-sponsored by the Welsh Libertarians and Llafur Cymru.

Opening Speech by PoliticoBailey.

Llywydd, I think it’s clear to many that I wasn’t with the previous Welsh Government on their healthcare policy. I didn’t think there was clarity, and I sought that at every opportunity. However, as I said in the Civil Service statement report, the course of action being taken by the First Minister should be rethought and scrapped. It is not the role of the civil service to be commissioned to investigate the policies of a predecessor Welsh Government - and the decision of the Welsh Government to launch a civil service inquiry into a preceding healthcare plan is not the right approach.

It is of course open to the Welsh Government to be sceptical of what their predecessors were planning, however they are fully able to - and indeed should - present the Senedd with their own plans and views on healthcare nationalisation. They should allow us to scrutinise their own vision, not launch an inquiry into a vision from a Welsh Government no longer in power. Rather than doing this, and coming forward with their own nationalisation proposals, they’ve settled on a course of staking future nationalisation through dependency on the civil service formulating a report on the policies of a party that no longer occupies power.

I do also believe the implications of the precedent this could set is worrying. If the Welsh Government does not deliver on part of their Programme for Government, are they inviting the next Welsh Government to commission a civil service report into the details of their policy and the legality of their proposals? Some may think this is on the whole insignificant, but I do believe there are democratic implications here.

Further, why not seek Senedd consent to form a cross-party committee or inquiry on this matter? There are options available to the Welsh Government that don’t involve bypassing the Senedd and commissioning an internal investigation of a policy they have no details about. They could’ve worked cross-party to try and achieve consensus on healthcare nationalisation, but instead they’ve chosen a course of action which will only polarise the Senedd further. I’m not convinced that this policy or plan of action was sufficiently thought through. It’s not too late for the Welsh Government to reverse course, work cross-party, and bring an end to this wrong course of action. I implore the Senedd to pass this common-sense motion.

Voting on this motion will end Sunday 9th July at 10pm BST.