Oral Answers to Questions

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 11th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Free schools have performed a very important function in raising standards in education in this country, and I am pleased that we have so many more children now in good or outstanding schools. Free schools have done something else as well, as I see in my own constituency, where one of the free schools is specifically for children who are on the autistic spectrum. That is very important, and it is a service that was not available previously. Free schools have enabled that to happen. They are providing for people up and down the country, and we should welcome them.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

Q15. Vascular services in my constituency are to be moved to an as yet untested centre, while in Bangor we already have a facility with an international reputation. Does the Prime Minister share my concern that, due to bungling over health by the Labour Government in Cardiff, seriously ill Welsh patients will have to travel further and even, like the late Irfon Williams, have to move to live in England just to access proper treatment?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. I am obviously not aware of the details of the particular services and of the transfer that he has referred to, but the overall point he makes is that people living in Wales are often seeing that they are getting a less good service from the Labour Government NHS in Wales—[Interruption.] Oh, yes. Yes, this is the case. As the hon. Gentleman says, there are people who will travel from Wales to England to get the service that is available in the NHS in England, and the Labour Government in Wales need to take a hard look at what they are doing to the NHS in Wales.