RHUN AP IORWERTH

COLUMNIST

WHEN history teachers in the future try to explain the politics of these turbulent times, one slogan will be drawn upon, long after the bus on which it was daubed has been broken up for scrap:

“We send the EU £350m a week – let’s fund our NHS instead”.

No ambiguity – just a straight up “why spend this money on membership of a club that gives us NOTHING in return – NOTHING! – when we could be spending it on a cash-starved health service.”

The campaigners were of course hoping that this was always presented out of context.

Because when even the slightest scrutiny about what the EU club has given the NHS is applied, the cost benefit analysis rapidly swings the other way.

The idea that our membership fee for the EU club had brought “nothing” in return was as preposterous as the notion that the NHS itself would be saved simply by ceasing to pay our EU subs.

We have European frameworks governing the licensing of medicines and the shipment of medical isotopes used in scans and cancer treatment.

Without those patients will face longer waits for the latest technology in our NHS. We have the extensive funding of cross European health research and collaboration, over 40 years of relationships and agreements that have helped advance the treatment of patients.

Hundreds of doctors and nurses and other health professionals from other EU states work hard in our health service. We couldn’t operate without them.

And I fear that we can’t even measure the numbers who would have considered coming to work here, but who now think better for fear of being made to feel unwelcome, or of being repatriated somewhere down the line.

Already I know of several pharmaceutical companies who tell me they will now not develop medicines here – as they were planning to do – but have chosen instead to invest in other EU countries.

These are decisions that will collectively do more to reduce patient access to the latest treatments than any ministerial directive to NICE on increasing value for money thresholds.

This is why the debate over “deal” or “no deal”, single market membership and our future relationship with the EU matters. It is no good saying “the people have spoken” – those who campaigned to leave, such as Daniel Hannan and Nigel Farage are on record as advocating single market membership along the lines of Norway, as a quick Google search will prove.

That they are now attempting to move the UK further away from this relationship is merely another example of their broken promises. That’s why Plaid Cymru continues to push for Wales to remain members of the single market.

It’s my job to not only defend the existing relationships that health professionals, researchers and life sciences have developed in the past 40 years, but to support and develop further relationships, research collaboration, and innovation in health. Even if explaining this doesn’t fit on the side of a bus.

Rhun ap Iorwerth is health spokesman for Plaid Cymru