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Welsh Affairs

May I take the opportunity, like many others today, to pay tribute to the work of the former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr. Hain), who worked assiduously for Wales? We have had the odd policy disagreement from time to time, but he has always worked with patience and good humour and he is one of the best political campaigners I have ever come across. Wales is fortunate indeed in having my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy) as his successor. His political skills are respected on all sides of the House. He also agrees with me that what matters most to the people we are sent here to represent are the services that Government help to provide to those constituents. For that reason, I intend to concentrate on the delivery of public services in one form or another today. If there is a big political issue in Wrexham, my constituents get in touch with me. I hear about it from them pretty quickly and their strength of feeling is apparent. I recall that one such issue was the Government's ill-fated proposal for a single police force for Wales, a policy that was strongly opposed by Labour MPs in north Wales who, I believe, had a major effect upon the eventual decision. Another such issue is the delivery of specialist services in our NHS. Before I came to this place, I worked as a non-executive director at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt orthopaedic and district hospital at Gobowen in Shropshire, which has been referred to today. Within that hospital is the Midlands and North Wales centre for spinal injuries, headed by my very good friend Mr. Wagih El Masry, a consultant who, with his colleagues, achieves miraculous recoveries for many people who suffer catastrophic injuries in accidents. His skills have been developed over decades and are shared in only eight other centres in the UK. There is no comparable centre in north Wales. I have constituents who are walking today only because of the skill of the staff there. We all value medical services that are close to our homes but we understand that specialist skills can be developed only in specialist centres. Increasingly, the requirements of Royal Colleges dictate that those skills be delivered only in specialist centres. My constituents understand this and no constituent has contacted me to ask that those services should be delivered only in Wrexham. On the other hand, I have been contacted by constituents who are concerned that specialist services may be withdrawn from them because those services are based in England. I have heard from Wrexham residents who were treated at Broadgreen in Liverpool for heart surgery—