---

Welsh Affairs

That grandstanding from the hon. Gentleman, who is living in the past, is not unremarkable. Quite frankly, I prefer to look to the future, and we are proud of our record in Wales. It is time for Wales to have an alternative—not an alternative such as Plaid, which would tear Wales out of the heart of the United Kingdom, but an alternative that would put heart back into Wales with a revolution of social, corporate and personal responsibility. In the brief time available, I shall set out some of our hopes and aspirations for this valuable part of the UK. Despite Labour’s false rhetoric, we are determined as a party to improve the national health service for everyone—and not help the few to opt out. We are committed to the NHS ideal and have ruled out any move towards an insurance-based system. My colleagues in the Assembly have already set out some exciting proposals to improve NHS performance in Wales. They have been making plans so that, if successful in the elections, they can move to ensure safe and speedy access to local and appropriate hospitals, access to modern medicines, improvements in the hospital environment and to promote health and well-being throughout Wales. We have a vision for the health service and health care in Wales, which trust the doctors and the nurses—it is they, not politicians, who should be in the driving seat so that they can decide what is best for patients. Let us contrast that vision with eight years of Labour reality. Waiting lists are higher than when the Assembly was created, trusts are facing cumulative debts of more than £100 million, fewer than half of the adult population is registered with a dentist, and the health service is taking on administrative staff at a faster rate that it employs doctors and nurses. Even Labour’s first initiative, which was to create 22 health boards out of the five existing health authorities, is disastrous. That alone cost the Welsh taxpayer £15 million and has resulted in a duplication of effort and a huge increase in bureaucracy that has since curtailed any chance of increased efficiency and productivity in the service. So bad has Labour stewardship been that even the British Medical Association in Wales passed in 2005 a vote of no confidence in the Labour Welsh Assembly Government, following their mishandling of GP contracts. Our health service is certainly not safe in their hands. I agree with the Secretary of State that climate change is probably the biggest challenge facing us today in Wales or beyond our borders. It was good to hear that the right hon. Gentleman takes it seriously. He obviously takes it more seriously than the First Minister, who thinks that climate change is a subject of amusement, warranting flippant remarks about the weather. To me and my colleagues, it is a subject of great concern—not least following the publication of the key environmental statistics that I mentioned earlier, which show that emissions are higher in 2004 than they were in 1990. The right hon. Gentleman and I share the same aim on this and he will be pleased to know that Welsh Conservatives have been developing plans to reflect the need to develop and exploit renewable technology by exploring the viability of tidal power, biofuels and hydropower.