Defence Secretary warns he might not help Welsh health service again in future
The UK Government’s Defence Secretary has warned that he might not help the Welsh NHS again in the future.
Tory MP Ben Wallace, has recently made 98 personnel from the British Army available to support the Covid-19 vaccine booster programme in Wales.
But he said it was only there as a “last resort” and suggested that military might not necessarily assist in the future if he received a request from the Welsh Government to do so.
Wallace told Spectator TV: “If you are the Scottish first minister with a significant funding for your health service or the education service, or the Welsh first minister or indeed some of my colleagues in Whitehall, then it is not our job if you can’t run your health service in Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon.
“It is our job to be there as the last resort wherever you are in the United Kingdom. But fundamentally, when we are not in a national crisis or a pandemic, we’ll always be there to help. But fundamentally we are there to do our defence task protecting the nation.”
‘Critical’
Secretary of State for Wales Simon Hart said: “It is critical that as many people as possible receive the vaccine in our fight against Covid-19 and I’m hugely grateful to the UK’s Armed Forces for supporting this effort in Wales as well as continuing to support the work of the Welsh Ambulance Service.
“Since the beginning of the pandemic, the military has stepped up to support health services across Wales with the distribution of PPE, construction of a temporary hospital in Cardiff and assisting community testing in the South Wales valleys, demonstrating the UK Government’s commitment to meet the needs of the whole of the United Kingdom.”
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Understood. Time to devolve Defence.
No just tell him to send us our share of his Trident budget. That would fund a whole new service !
Lifetime cost of trident is £31bn – so that’s about £1bn a year. NHS spends that every 2 days
In any other sphere statements such as Ben Wallaces ‘ would be construed as blackmail, As such it confirms that the Union is finished and that the military no longer serve the UK as a whole but only serve the political whimsy of England,
Considering they recruit a disproportionate percentage for the services in Cymru we should be a bit miffed with statements like this to say the least
Maybe the inglish army could sod off out of Wales, and return places like the Epynt back to its rightful owners
Cytuno
What will it take? If not independent curious now, when? How much more of this nonsense must we put up with? How many of us do not have service personnel in our families? Are we supposed to party in the streets for the (undoubtedly useful) help from the 98?!
This illustrates exactly why Wales needs to be Independent.
This UK Gov, has given ministers the green light to say in public, what they have thaught in private for decades, now they know they can say it out loud with impunity.
So let me get this right. A senior English tory minister announce they intend to withhold help to Wales and look on while its people perish. Nothing new there then. They did that to the Irish during the 1845 famine.
Next announcement I guess will be the Welsh (?) conservatives backing the minister.
Would you gladly support someone who constantly insulted you and told you that you weren’t wanted?🤔😷
We pay for defence and a disproportionate number of our young people serve in the UK defence forces. Wallace is effectively stealing our money if he refuses Wales or Scotland what he grants to England.
This is not anti English
This is just stupid Tory trash talk
We re not wanted BUT THEY NEED OUR NATURAL RESOURCES
More intimidation & idle threats from our corrupt Conservative .minion Ben Wallace. He forgets, the Armed Forces are there because we pay our taxes, and rather than send them to illegal wars to die largely to gain favour with America hoping for an “oven ready” trade deal, would be far more constructive saving lives here in Wales to combat a very real threat with Covid and its numerous variants like Omicron
Allow me to paraphrase: “If you don’t behave yourself, I will smack your bottom.”
When will it dawn upon the minds of Welsh Labour’s leadership that you simply cannot reason with the unreasonable? You cannot reach any accomodation with the Tory State without offering your total subservience.
Just walk away!
No surprises here – we’ve been neglected for centuries. Can you honestly see England being denied support if its service was struggling (which incidentlly it is)? If you don’t want to help – stuff you! We’ll leave this corrupt union and do it ourselves.
What part of being in this ‘union’ do you like?
Ben Wally, a total hypocrite, knows full well Wales is and has more than provided for the armed forces with our loved ones and tax’s to be used as cannon fodder, just so the Englalanders can use them for capitalist greed-driven wars created by the Americans and their persecution of truth and freedom and pick up the scraps of the tyrannic futile conflicts around the globe, grade A arse whole is our Ben and his CONservative cohorts in crime!