Oral Answers to Questions

Rob Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What does it say about the right hon. and learned Gentleman that no one can name a single policy, after three years, of the Opposition apart from putting up taxes? He is one of those pointless plastic bollards you find around a deserted roadworks on a motorway. We got Brexit done; he voted against it 48 times. We got this country fast out of covid, in spite of everything, when he would have kept us in lockdown. We are fixing social care, when the Opposition have no plan and no ideas of their own. We are now bringing forward measures, in the face of strikes, to outlaw wildcat strikes.

I can tell the House why the Leader of the Opposition does that funny wooden flapping gesture—it is because he has the union barons pulling his strings from beneath. That is the truth—£100 million.

We have restored our democracy and our independence. We have got this country through covid. I am proud to say that when it comes to tackling climate change or sticking up for Ukraine, we have led the world on the international stage. I want to thank my friends and colleagues on these Benches for everything they have done.

[Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Ind)]

Q4. In September, it will be the 25th anniversary of the referendum on devolution in Scotland and Wales. One in 20 people in England on an NHS waiting list has been waiting for more than a year, but in Wales, the figure is one in five; and 75% of school leaders in Wales say that they do not have enough capital to maintain their buildings, let alone build new ones. Will the Prime Minister and Minister for the Union take this final opportunity at the Dispatch Box to agree that, in Wales at least, devolution has been a disaster?

[The Prime Minister]

I want devolution to work, and I have had some good conversations with Mark Drakeford, but the devolved authorities, particularly Labour in Wales, need to do their job properly.